Glowing Bunny Rabbits (Picture of the Day: 8/13/13)

Glowing rabbits. Source

 These rabbits are really glowing. Scientists, called genetic engineers, have been adding or replacing genes in animals for years now in order to study the effects, research new medicine production techniques, or for any other number of scientific reasons. So why would anyone create a glowing bunny? The glow is not the purpose of the genetic engineering itself, it is merely a marker. Genetic engineers add a bio-luminescence gene so that they know if the other genes that they added took hold. It is literally a glowing beacon letting scientists know if they were successful. These rabbits (created in Turkey) have joined the ranks of numerous other glow-in-the-dark animals, like cats that are resistant to FIV (the feline version of HIV).

For more information, check out this article.

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Perseid Meteor Shower Update

So, sadly I didn't get to see the Perseids Sunday night. I went out to a field in Iowa City around midnight, but it was too cloudy and bright to see anything but the brightest stars. The curse of living near civilization. With any luck, many of you got out to see those meteors and didn't have to deal with clouds and light pollution.
If you didn't get to see the meteor shower, there are plenty of websites out there (like this one) where you can see beautiful images of the Perseids.

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Perseid Meteor Shower Live! (Video of the Day: 8/11/13)

Hey everyone! Tonight the Perseid meteor shower starts up again! If you can, I recommend getting out of the house tonight between 10:30 and 4:30 to see the best parts of this shower, as bits of dust and rock hurtle themselves into our atmosphere. If you can't get out of the house, check out this live feed of the meteor shower. I know that I'll be checking it out myself.
The Pereid shower is one of the more prolific meteor showers around. This meteor shower occurs annually whenever the Earth passes through the debris tail of the comet Swift-Tuttle.

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I'll be posting daily about new things I've learned and new discoveries in science. Be sure to follow me and get all of the juicy knowledge that I know you want!
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Accretion Disc (Science Word of the Day: 8/8/13)

An accretion disc is a disc-shaped rotating mass formed by gravitational attraction.
This explanation doesn't seem like much, but it makes more sense when you put it in the context of our universe. Earth formed through the process of accretion; a bunch of dust began to clump together and eventually attracted bigger rocks which clumped until you have the large spheroid that is Earth. However, all this matter didn't just fly together. Gravity pulled particles to what would become Earth over time, and as these particles flew in towards Earth, they often fell into orbit. This orbital pattern of accreting matter rotates a lot like a hurricane viewed from the top. This rotating disc of matter is the accretion disc.

Lab-Grown Burgers (Picture of the Day: 8/8/13)

The raw lab-grown meat patty. Source

 

Cooking the patty. Source

 

 

This demonstration of our new technology has been a long time in coming. Humanity first gained the ability to grow meat without the aid of an animal (called in vitro meat) in the 1990s, but now we're approaching the day when this food source will be cheap enough to market.

I suppose I should explain what lab-grown meat is. The general principle is that this in vitro meat is cruelty free and much better for the environment than conventional meat. A couple cells are harvested from a donor animal (this does not injure the animal) and then grown in a lab setting. The cells can be coaxed into dividing like they were still on the animal, thus allowing for the growing of meat without having to kill anything to harvest it.

This new demonstration was given at a science talk turned cooking show where two food critics taste tested one of these lab-grown burgers. Flavor-wise, the critics claimed, the meat was just like regular meat, except that it lacked fat (which is, admittedly, a pretty big deal when it comes to meat).

This particular patty looks pink here, but that's only because it was colored with beet root juice and saffron. The actual meat itself is a pasty white due to the fact that there's no actual blood involved.

Artificially grown meat is currently far too expensive to be a consumer product, but I have hope that one day we'll be able to grow meat without having to breed environmentally wasteful animals. I know I'd eat a lab-grown burger if I ever got the chance.

 

For more information, check out this article.



Earth from Saturn, Dolphins Using Names, and Neutrino News (Pictures of the Day: 7/23/13)

There are so many cool new things in science today that I've decided to have three Pictures of the Day for today.

A view of Earth from the rings of Saturn. Source

 

The Cassini spacecraft recently looked back past the rings of Saturn to take a picture of its place of origin, Earth. You can see the pale blue dot that the arrow is pointing to. That pale dot is our home. This picture really puts our size into perspective. Cassini is well within our tiny solar system, and yet Earth still appears as little more than a piece of dust. We truly are just specks walking around on a speck which orbits a speck that is just one of billions of specks that make up even larger specks in our vast, vast universe. It's things like this that make all of my problems seem insignificant.

For more information, check out this article.

 

 

Dolphin. Source

 



New research seems to indicate that dolphins have names given to them by one another. The researchers used a specific call that corresponds to a specific dolphin to run this test. Whenever the call that corresponded to the dolphin was used, that dolphin would respond, but if they used a different call, the dolphin just ignored it. As far as we can tell, this is the first animal besides humans that has ever been observed using a name. The reason that this is different from your dog responding when you yell "Fido!" is because the dolphins assign this name to one another. It seems like we are constantly learning that other animals aren't as dumb as we thought. Sure, dolphins don't know how to build cars, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't give them a little respect. After all, they have a form of language just like us.

For more information, check out this article.

 

 

Super Kamiokande particle detector in Japan. Source

 



 





Researchers have learned something new about neutrinos. Neutrinos are the elusive and nearly massless particles that stream through us every day. What most people don't know is that there are three kinds of neutrinos, three "flavors". There are electron-neutrinos, muon-neutrinos, and tau-neutrinos. These researchers fired a stream of muon-neutrinos at the Super Kamiokande detector in Japan and observed a much greater number of electron-neutrinos than they would have expected if these neutrinos weren't changing in transit. This evidence tells us that it is possible for neutrinos to switch their types. In other words, they can switch flavor. I find this fascinating. Who knows what will come of this discovery in the future?

For more information, check out this article.

Spacewalk Catastrophe (Picture of the Day: 7/18/13)

Space walking astronaut. Source

 

Two days ago, on the 16th, a nightmare became reality. Two astronauts, Luca Parmitano and Chris Cassidy, were going on a routine maintenance spacewalk on the International Space Station when disaster struck. A leak appeared in Parmitano's helmet. At first, ground control thought that it was just a leak from his water bag and that it would quickly stop. After a few minutes, however, it became apparent that the leak was much more serious. Once the water had saturated his hair and gotten into his eyes, ground control finally ordered an end to the space walk. Once the astronauts were safely inside, it became apparent that Parmitano's radio wasn't working because he couldn't hear ground control's messages. The other astronauts on the ISS assure us that he's okay, however.

It seems likely that the leak came from the cooling system in Parmitano's space suit. Adding just another danger on the list of things that can kill you in space.

For more information, check out this article.



Voyager 1's Weird Discovery (Picture of the Day: 6/27/13)

The most up-to-date model of the solar system's edge. Source

 



 

Voyager 1, the farthest man-made object from Earth, has discovered something that scientists weren't expecting. Our sun throws off a constant stream of charged particles known as solar wind. This solar wind radiates through our solar system in a giant sphere that theoretically protects us from much of the galaxy's cosmic rays. Furthermore, these charged particles extend the Sun's magnetic field, which is thought to be inverted 60 degrees to the galaxy's magnetic field. Recently, Voyager 1 reached the edge of the solar wind-sphere, and the prevalence of galactic cosmic rays increased as expected. The interesting thing is that the direction of the cosmic rays was strongly biased in one direction, instead of coming equally from all directions as was expected. Even more curious, the magnetic field around Voyager 1 didn't change, meaning that it is theoretically still under the influence of the Sun's magnetic field. The debate about exactly what all of this means will probably rage for a long time to come, but we could still see Voyager 1 run into the galactic magnetic field in a few days, or a few years.

For more information, check out this article.

Accommodation (Science Word of the Day: 6/27/13)

In a scientific context, the word accommodation refers to the process by which the focal length of the lens of the eye is changed so that clear images of objects at a variety of distances can be displayed on the retina and thus seen by the brain. In humans and many mammals, this is achieved through reflexive adjustments to the shape of the lens of the eye by relaxing or contracting muscles in the ciliary body.

Kirobo, the Robot in Space! (Picture of the Day: 6/26/13)

Kirobo and Mirata. Source

 

The robot to the left in this picture goes by the name "Kirobo", and it will soon be rocketing towards the International Space Station. Standing at 13 inches tall and just over 2 pounds, this robot was built to be a conversation companion. Toyota, the University of Tokyo, and Robo Garage have all been working together on this little fellow as a way to make a robotic companion to take away some of the feeling of isolation that comes from extended stays in space. Kirobo is specially outfitted to work in zero gravity and to survive all the hardships of space, as well as being outfitted with complex software that allows it to speak Japanese and hold a conversation. This robot will have to wait until Commander Koichi Wakata arrives at the ISS in November or December, but then they will have the first ever conversation between human and robot in space. Fun stuff!

With any luck, robotics technology will not stop here, and we'll soon see even more complex machines helping us through our every day tasks.

For more information, check out this article.



Acceptor (Science Word of the Day: 6/26/13)

A boron atom acting as an acceptor in a silicon lattice. Source

 

An acceptor is kind of a complicated idea. The simples explanation is that it is an impurity purposefully put into a semiconducting material because it has fewer valence electrons (outer shell electrons, the ones that bond to other atoms) and will thus create an electron hole that will move around the lattice as electrons jump to repair the hole, only to make the hole again where they jumped from. This hole can carry a charge, and thus is useful.



3 New Possibly Habitable Planets (Picture of the Day: 6/25/13)

Planets of Gliese 667C. Source

 

 

It seems like every other week we're finding more planets closer and closer to Earth-like habitability. This new discovery of several planets orbiting Gliese 667C, one star in a three star system, may be adding to our list of habitable worlds. As shown in the picture above, three of the newly discovered planets are in the habitable zone, Gliese 667C c, Gliese 667C f, and Gliese gg7C e. These new planets are super-Earth's, meaning that they are more massive than Earth itself, but they aren't too massive for life to exist, in my opinion (I am utterly unqualified to make a determination, but I can guess). In order, their masses are 3.8 Earths, 2.7 Earths, and 2.7 Earths. Life is a tenacious thing. If there's a place in the universe where it can live, it will live there.

What's even more exciting about this system is that it is only 22 light years away. Don't get me wrong, that's still too far away for humans to reach at this point in our technological development, but it is close enough that potential future missions to these super-Earths aren't inconceivable.

For more information, check out this article or this article.

Abundance (Science Word of the Day: 6/25/13)

Instead of just meaning "a lot of", abundance means different things in the scientific community. One definition of abundance is the ratio of the total mass of some element or substance as compared to the total mass of Earth. I guess this could be called geological abundance or something, if that is easier to remember. An example of this form of abundance would be something like "the abundance of aluminum in Earth's crust is 8%" because Earth's crust is 8% aluminum.
Another definition of abundance is the ratio of the number of atoms of a particular isotope of an element compared to the total number of atoms of all isotopes of that element. For example, "the natural abundance of uranium-235 is 0.71%" meaning that 0.71% of a sample of natural uranium is the uranium-235 isotope.

IRIS (Picture of the Day: 6/24/13)

IRIS being worked on in a clean room. Source

 

 

This exciting satellite is NASA's new Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS). It is a satellite designed to orbit Earth is such a way that it is perpetually above the sunrise line so that the sun is always visible. IRIS will try to image and help us learn more about the "interface region" in the solar atmosphere, a region about 3,000 to 6,000 miles thick. This region is theoretically a key transfer point to the sun's hot corona. We don't know very much about the sun, even after having lived under it for so long, so hopefully this satellite will reveal some of its mysteries.

What's especially interesting about IRIS right now is that it will launch Wednesday, June 26. That's this week. Hopefully we'll be able to see some of the things that IRIS will reveal to us in the very near future.

To learn more, check out this article.



Absorptance (Science Word of the Day: 6/24/13)

Absorptance is "the ratio of the radiant or luminous flux absorbed by a body to the flux falling on it". Basically, absorptance is how much light something absorbs. Sweet and simple.
Of some note, the absorptance of a blackbody (an object that absorbs 100% of the energy that hits it) is 1.

NASA Joins Mission to Mercury (Picture of the Day: 6/23/13)

Mercury. Source

 

NASA is jumping on board with the dual-orbiter mission to Mercury started by the European Space Agency and Japan's Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. The mission's name is BepiColombo, after the Italian scientist Guiseppe "Bepi" Colombo who developed a technique for using a planet's gravity to maneuver satellites. The European Space Agency is sending up the Mercury Planetart Orbiter, and Japan is sending up its own Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter. All NASA is sending up is a small instrument, known as Strofio, to analyze the small amounts of gases that form Mercury's atmosphere. This will all be launched together aboard an Ariane 5 rocket in August 2015. The mission will take six years to reach Mercury.

For more information, check out this article.





Aberration (Science Word of the Day: 6/23/13)

I have decided to start increasing my scientific vocabulary by one word every day, and I thought that it might be a good idea to share each word with the world. So, stay tuned to learn more science words!

Today's word is "aberration". This isn't the general "deviating from the usual" definition, however. There are two ways to define aberration in a scientific term (I'm sure that there are many more ways, but I'll talk about two).

The first definition is optical aberration. This occurs in two ways. The first way is known as chromatic aberration when the edges of an image are oddly colored. Chromatic aberration occurs when a glass lens refracts light in an uneven way, bending the colors and creating this aberrant effect. The second form of optical aberration is spherical aberration. Spherical aberration can occur with either lenses or mirrors, and it happens when the light rays from the observed object come to focus in slightly different positions as a result of curvature in the observing device.

Chromatic aberration. Source

Spherical aberration compared to no aberration. Source



The second definition is astronomical aberration. Astronomical aberration is the observed displacement in the position of a star due to the Earth's movement around the sun. The star's light appears to come from a spot slightly displaced in the direction of the Earth's movement. This is defined by the equation a = v/c, where v is the orbital velocity of Earth, and c is the speed of light.

Arecibo and 1998 QE2 (Picture of the Day: 6/19/13)

Asteroid 1998 QE2 as seen by the Arecibo telescope. Source

 

Back in 1998, a massive asteroid, dubbed 1998 QE2, was discovered by a team at MIT. This year, the asteroid made a close flyby of Earth, just a little over 6 million kilometers out (that sounds like a very far distance, but in astronomical terms, it's nothing). During that close flyby, it was caught on "camera" by a team manning the Arecibo radio telescope. These researchers bounced radio waves off of the giant floating space rock and were able to map its topography using a technique based on the Doppler effect. What they didn't expect to find, however, was that the asteroid had it's own little moon. That's right, this asteroid is so big that there is an object caught in orbit around it. You can see this moon as the little, white blip towards the bottom left of the picture. We are very fortunate that this asteroid wasn't closer to us.

For more information, check out this article.



The Harm of Alternative Medicine (Picture of the Day: 6/17/13)

Homeopathic and alternative medicines. Source

 

This topic is too big to just be a "Picture of the Day", so I will be writing a full article on the subject later, but I thought this too important to go unmentioned until that post, so I'm writing about it now. The topic that I want to talk about is alternative medicine. All through the United States there are individuals selling herbal, homeopathic, or other "natural" treatments that they claim can boost a person's health or even cure diseases. The problem with all of this is that most of the time these treatments don't work, allowing the disease that they were supposed to treat to go unchecked, and oftentimes they can even be harmful themselves. When you think that you might have an illness, it is important to visit a trained medical physician and to take their advice for treatment. But even beyond that, it is always important to know what you are putting into your body. If you are prescribed a medicine or you want to take a supplement, do your research. Make sure that it has been FDA approved and that there is sufficient scientific evidence to say that it really will help you.

I very much recommend reading this article to get the scoop on harmful alternative remedies.