Best way to beat the Memorial Day heat? Science!
Spent 6 hours in the lab today. Science takes no holidays. If I don’t do science now, the Chinese will scoop me.
Never would have seen this on Mr. Rogers
moves like jagger
Surface of aluminum milling grooves (10x)
1956 Citroën converted to run on coal gas, part of the upcoming Alternative Energy Vehicles Exhibition of the AACA Museum.
Heart embryology movie
This is Dr. Richard Blandau’s classic animation on development of the heart.
Dr. Blandau (1911-1998) was renowned for his basic studies of ovulation, fertilization and embryonic development. He made many groundbreaking motion pictures. One of them, “Congenital Malformations of the Heart”, contains this 9 minute animation sequence. The film was made in 1951 at the University of Washington, in collaboration with Dr. Robert Rushmer.
The 16mm film was widely used in embryology courses. Well-worn copies of it were subsequently transferred to early videotape; and videotapes in turn have been recopied to digital media. So great is the film’s instructional quality that in spite of severe degradation these twice copied versions are still in use today. It was felt that a high quality digital restoration would be valuable, both for students and teachers of embryology, and as an object lesson in the art of instructional animation. This restored version was made from Dr. Blandau’s personal copy of the film, using the best available film scanning technology. The new sound track uses the same words as the original film.
Thanks to the University of Washington Special Collections, for permission to make this restoration available online.Happy Valentines day tumblr. Whether in a relationship or single you can be my Valentine :3
“The celebrated evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould once called Fritz Goro “the most influential photographer that science journalism (and science in general) has ever known.” LIFE’s science editor, Gerard Piel, praised Goro’s extraordinary gift for capturing “abstractions, of the big ideas from the genetic code to plate tectonics.” Here, LIFE.com presents Goro’s most striking, imaginative, technically accomplished, unsettlingly graphic, and frequently downright beautiful science pictures. Above: Metal samples studied in a glass vacuum, 1946.” Via.
New evidence suggests Archaeopteryx dressed in black.
Scientists have found a way to uncover feathered dinosaurs’ true colors, and one of the first creatures to come under inspection is none other than Archaeopteryx — an iconic but mysterious theropod believed by many to be the “missing link” between dinosaurs and birds.
Now, by examining a single, exceptionally well-preserved feather, one group of paleontologists believes it has the evidence it needs to weigh in on the color of Archaeopteryx’s prehistoric plumage. This bird, say the researchers, wore black.
By comparing the patterns of melanosomes contained within the Archaeopteryx feather (seen above) with the those found in the plumage of 87 similar, modern bird species, the researchers were able to determine that the feather was almost certainly black. What’s more, the researchers say Archaeopteryx’s melanosomes would have provided its wings a structural advantage, as well.
“If Archaeopteryx was flapping or gliding, the presence of melanosomes would have given the feathers additional structural support,” said Ryan Carney, an evolutionary biologist at Brown and the paper’s lead author. “This would have been advantageous during this early evolutionary stage of dinosaur flight.”
Read the full article at io9.
Carbon Nanotubes
While not being particularly new to science, carbon nanotubes remain one of the more interesting and versatile new materials. At their basic level all they are is an allotrope of carbon in the shape of a cylinder, typically made by rolling a single atom thick sheet known as graphene or by deposition of carbon atoms. They also occur naturally in flames. The importance of carbon nanotubes lies in their incredible strength but also incredibly low density which gives them a specific strength (force per unit area divided by density or N·m·kg−1 for short) ~310 times greater than high carbon steel. Carbon nanotubes also have the predicted ability to carry an electrical current density that is 1000 times that of traditional conductors such as copper along with also being superb thermal conductors. The longest carbon nanotube to date clocks in at 18.5 cm (7.3 inches or 84% the width of a soccer ball) with the greatest length to width ratio being 132,000,000:1.
Images: 1, 2
Teens Put Lego Man in ‘Space’ (Actually Stratosphere)
That’s one giant leap for Lego. Two Canadian highschoolers have wowed the Web with their video of a Lego toy taking a balloon ride to near-space.
The video, made by Toronto 17-year-olds Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad, shows a tiny Lego man holding a Canadian flag with the blue curve of the Earth far below and the black of space above. It is the latest example of do-it-yourself near-space photography by an amateur balloon launching team.
The teens used a weather balloon to carry the Lego minifigure and set of cameras, one with a fish-eye lens, into to the stratosphere, ultimately reaching a height of nearly 80,000 feet (24,384 meters) before the balloon burst, according to the Toronto Star . Once the balloon popped, the Lego man and its attached cameras fell back to Earth under a homemade parachute.
Pictures that they have taken:
Photo Credit: Lego Man In Space, Mission Success Album
Caffeine Alters Estrogen Levels in Younger Women
With about 90% of women aged 18-44 drinking one or two cups of coffee everyday, one has to wonder what effects this could be having on our health, besides the usually intended energy boost. A recent study looked at the estrogen levels in women in this age group to see if that daily cup of joe really made a difference. And, as it turns out, it does.
The women, who were drinking on average 900mg of caffeine a day, were monitored over two menstrual cycles. While most women were affected by the caffeine intake, how so actually depended on race.
Asian and African American women who consumed more than 200mg a day were actually determined to have higher estrogen levels than they did at the commencement of the study, though the estrogen increase of the African American women was not nearly as significant as that of the Asian women. On the other hand, caucasian women had the opposite effect, with their estrogen levels decreasing.
While the possible reasonings as to why the effects differed by race remain unknown, when tested with other caffeinated beverages, such as green tea and sodas, estrogen levels in all of the women increased, regardless of race.
Now, should we be worried? Well, women in this age group who have already had children don’t have to worry, as a difference was not statistically notable. As for the rest, The New York Times reports “while healthy, premenopausal women should not worry about caffeine intake in the short term, more research was needed to see if there could be a cumulative impact over many years or decades.”
Hallucigenia
When: Early to Middle Cambrian (~540 to 500 million years ago)
Where: Found in what is now British Columbia and China
What: Hallucigenia is another odd fossil first known from the Burgess Shale formation of Canada. This largest individuals only reach 1.2 inches (~3cm) long, but there has been a lot of scientific debate centered around this tiny species. Before we get into the debate over its phyogenetic position, first we need to talk about which way is up! Or anterior for that matter. The first reconstructions of Hallucigenia had it walking on the stiff looking spiny projections, with the more flexible tentacles used to bring food to its mouth, which was reconstructed as being on a large bulbous projection. The modern interpretation is reversed in almost every way; it walks on the tentacle feet, the spines are on the dorsal surface for protection, and its head is on the opposite end. The modern reconstruction does not even have a large bulbous projection, as it is now thought the appearance of this blob in fossils is the inner organs of Hallucigenia being squeezed out though its posterior as it was flattened either at or after death. This strange form walked along the ocean floor, eating tiny food particles.
So now we /might/ know how this animal really looked… but what is it related to? Common suggestions have been: velvet worms (Onychophore), an extremely basal Arthoropoda, or as a member of a phylum now extinct. There is no firm consensus even today.
The Royal Ontario Museum recently put up a spectacular website on the Burgess Shale that you should check out if you would like to learn more about Hallucigenia and its contemporaries.
