Short Lecture on Epigenetics

I listened to this lecture on epigenetics the other day when I was cleaning my room. Although the language is a little technical in spots, it's pretty interesting to a lay observer.

Enjoy!

Squirrels Might Be Good for Something!

My friends were standing outside the classics building, the other day, discussing the stupidity of squirrels. It's true, I have encountered some fairly idiotic and foolhardy squirrels in my time, but a new article has generated some faith in the little fuzzy beasts. According to the New York Times, Russian scientists claim to have re-germinated and recreated a plant from fruit buried by a squirrel almost 32,000 years ago. I can't wait to see whether the arctic flower will hold up to outside inspection.

Extra-Terrestrial Black Market

I saw this article the other day in the New York Times and thought it was really interesting. It's about the disappearance of moon rocks from various institutions and what happens to them (e.g. sale on the black market, etc.). I just though it was kind of cool.

On Nutrinos

About two months ago, I read an article in the New York Times that said scientists believed nutrinos may have surpassed the speed of light. I asked Cerinthus, as he is currently writing his physics thesis, and he remained skeptical. However, it would be pretty cool. So today I read that a second experiment confirmed the original findings. However, the article mentions that theorists are having some trouble figuring out the reason behind this strange experimental data.

Because of this, while I was cleaning my room I listened to the In Our Time podcast on Nutrinos. Although I don't entirely understand, this time (the second time I listed to it) it made more sense.

Follow Up on Dolphin Comunication

In March, I posted a piece on a group of scientists who were trying to create a common language in order to communicate simply with dolphins. I thought it was pretty cool. Recently, the New York Times did a feature on the same topic so I thought I would post it.

Now time to study for my prose composition quiz.

Macro Quantem Phenomena

Cerinthus is preparing topics for his thesis. One of the things that he is considering working on is a strange set of experiments with silicone droplets that show certain properties of quantum mechanics on a macro level. Although, I have to admit, I was skeptical at first, it's pretty cool.

Flamingos for Thought

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

I have been writing my art history midterm most of this weekend so I am fairly swamped (it's due tomorrow), but I had a moment to read this fabulously written and interesting article about flamingos in the New York Times. I highly suggest it.

I learned in my high school biology class that flamingos develop their traditional pink color from pigments in the algae that they eat, but I did not know why they stood on one leg until now. The article is great, I highly suggest it.

Like Time Team, but Older

Recently, due to a construction contract and a harsh winter, paleontologist had to unearth one of the largest cashes of Pleistocene (the most recent Ice Age) mammals in 70 days. A great New York Times article Servia sent me discusses the time-crunched dig. What is most impressive about these findings is that the cash is so large that not only have scientists gained a vast array of bones, but they actually have enough data now in order to determine new information like migratory patterns of large mammals. There is a short slide show of Ice Age bones at the New York Times as well.

Isn't It Time for Your Milk and Arsenic, Darling?

"Isn't it time for your milk and arsenic, darling," is one of the great lines of sisterly-disagreement in High Society, a wonderful musical I discussed in a previous blogpost. The reference to arsenic metaphorically conveys the hostility between the pair. Part of the reason this comment is so poisonous is that arsenic is poisonous to every known life form-- or it was thought to be, until now.

In a recent discovery as reported by the New York Times, scientist Felisa Wolfe-Simon discovered an arsenophilic (just a guess as to whether that is the right word) life form. The bacteria live in the bottom of Mono lake in an environment rich with arsenic. Wolfe-Simon brought these back to her lab and fed them on an arsenic-heavy diet, slowly swapping the phosphorus traditionally considered essential for life with arsenic.

Phosphorus is the backbone of DNA. Swapping the arsenic with phosphorus opens a number of possibilities for alternate building blocks of life, and is something never seen before. According to the article, "Caleb Scharf, an astrobiologist at Columbia University who was not part of the research, said he was amazed. 'It’s like if you or I morphed into fully functioning cyborgs after being thrown into a room of electronic scrap with nothing to eat,' he said. " (article).

This provides a greater variety of possibilities not only for alien life, but also a possible new system of life on our own planet. How cool is that?

New York Times Graphic from article.

Project M

Apparently, the moon just isn't cool enough anymore. This surprised me, especially since the unexciting-to-non-scientists "moon plume" has made astronomers giddy about the idea of water on the moon once again (mentioned in a previous blogpost). However, since "we've already been there" (in the words of President Obama), NASA cannot gain the funding to send another person to the moon. So instead, they will send a robot.

According to the New York Times article I read, that the humanoid robot should inspire more interest than sending a man or woman in its place: "Project M’s planners say that a robot walking on the Moon would capture the imagination of students, just as the Apollo Moon landings inspired a generation of scientists and engineers 40 years ago" (article). Even more surprising is the creative funding;  Stephen J. Altemus, the chief engineer at Johnson explained that "we’re doing impossible things with really very little, if any, money whatsoever" (article) According to the article, some of the more expensive pieces have been obtained through barter and small-scale but vital experiments are engineered with cheap materials from Home Depot.

The View from Above

Over the past week I have found a couple of fascinating articles about spacetravel.

First, there are some pretty incredible pictures of the space station from the U.K.'s Daily Mail.

Second, I heard about a possible manned mission to Mars on MSNBC's Countdown. Apparently, a pair of scientists proposed a one-way ticket to Mars and create a permanent colony there. However, at the moment, they only want to send men over the age of sixty to go there because of radiation.

Third, while I was trying to find the information about the manned mission to Mars, I stumbled upon an article on a 1967 plan for a manned mission to Venus. That is way crazier than a manned mission to Mars. You can read about it on Galaxiki.

Mammalian Evolution

A New York Times article, yesterday, reports that an anthropoid ancestor of the primate, may have originated in Asia rather than Africa. Anthropoids, as I found out, were creatures between the about twice the weight of chinchilla but smaller than a marmot. Although they were the size of a large rodent, they looked very much like primates.

Picture from NYT article: Lybia, where the fossils were found

Tuxedoless Penguins

Recently, scientists discovered a gigantic penguin from millions of years ago. According to the NPR piece, this penguin is from the Eocene period and did not have the traditional penguin tuxedo markings that we know today. Scientists believe from little modules on the feathers that they can determine the color patterns on some parts of the penguin including the flipper.

"These giant penguins have quite elongate, prominent beaks. And, of course, their size is striking. Would you immediately recognize something that's twice the size of a living penguin and had a different beak morphology and was differently colored as a giant penguin on first seeing it? I think - I'm not sure we would've. " (NPR)

The story is pretty cool.