Misc. science facts

[twilyth]

A new drug that I've been following for a couple years looks like it will finally enter Phase III clinical trials. It's designed as an antidepressant but works on a completely different pathway than other drugs so if approved it will be the first in its class. Unfortunately, P3 trials can take about 3 years since they are the most expensive and rigorous and as a result only about 1 in 5 drugs that are tested ever actually make it to market but things look good right now for Glyx-13

The Chicago-area company says that in clinical proof-of-concept studies, GLYX-13 “was well-tolerated and demonstrated rapid, robust and sustained antidepressant effects.” The drug works by targeting NMDA receptors, which increase synaptic plasticity and correct irregularities in how neural cells communicate.

“Our company was established to develop therapeutics that precisely modulate the NMDA receptor to normalize and even enhance neuronal communication, thereby correcting the dysfunction that is at the root of many CNS disorders,” CEO Norbert Riedel said in a statement. He added that the proceeds will go toward addressing other CNS diseases and disorders.

New drug might help treat spinal cord injuries w/out surgery. It doesn't seem to cause the axons of nerve cells to regrow through scar tissue but causes the few remaining functional neurons to send out more branches thus allowing them to have a greater effect.

After spinal cord injury, axons try to cross the injury site and reconnect with other cells but are stymied by scarring that forms after the injury. Previous studies suggested their movements are blocked when the protein tyrosine phosphatase sigma (PTP sigma), an enzyme found in axons, interacts with chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans, a class of sugary proteins that fill the scars.

Dr. Lang and his colleagues designed a drug called ISP to block the enzyme and facilitate the drug’s entry into the brain and spinal cord. Injections of the drug under the skin of paralyzed rats near the injury site partially restored axon growth and improved movements and bladder functions.

 

[Drone]

 

[twilyth]

I'm not sure where to put this or if it deserved a thread so I'll let someone else decide that, but I figured this could affect some people here so I felt obliged.

Lenovo Recalls Computer Power Cords Due to Fire and Burn Hazards

The AC power cord can overheat, posing fire and burn hazards.

 

[twilyth]

LHC magnets get prepped for restart.

In order to prepare the LHC to run at its design power of 14Tev (7Tev x 2), engineers had to upgrade all of its superconducting magnets. These keep the beam moving in an arc around the accelerator. The article talks about the process involved in getting the magnets ready to do this.

The LHC magnets are superconducting, which means that when they are cooled down, current passes through them with zero electrical resistance. During powering, current is gradually increased in the magnetic coils, which sometimes generates tiny movements in the superconductor. These movements create friction, which in turn locally heats up the superconductor and makes it quench—or suddenly return to a non-superconducting state. When this occurs, the circuit is switched off and its energy is absorbed by huge resistors.

“By purposefully making the magnets quench, we can literally ‘shake out’ any unresolved tension in the coils and prep the magnets to hold a high current without losing their superconducting superpowers,” says Matteo Solfaroli, an LHC engineer-in-charge and co-leader of the commissioning team. “This is a necessary part of prepping the accelerator for the restart so that the magnets don’t quench while we are running the beam.”

 

[Drone]

A bit of everything:

A Universe of 10 Dimensions

The Universe by Numbers

Number of Universes in the Multiverse

Story of the Universe

 

[twilyth]

How to make a neutrino beam

 

[Drone]

I've been playing Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker and dialogue between Big Boss and Cecile got me interested in ornithology XD

Some interesting facts about rulers of the skies:

200 scientists from 20 countries have produced a new family tree for nearly all species of birds alive today, drawing on a massive DNA analysis to gain insights into evolutionary history.

Here's amazing latest and greatest diagram *saves*

And here's interactive version

Chickens and turkeys 'closer to dinosaur ancestors' than other birds

Haha, can you imagine that?

New research suggests that chickens and turkeys have experienced fewer gross genomic changes than other birds as they evolved from their dinosaur ancestor.

Birds Lost Their Teeth 116 Million Years Ago

A group of genetic researchers has found that teeth were lost in the common ancestor of all living birds about 116 million years ago (the end of the Early Cretaceous).

How birds get by without external ears

Unlike mammals, birds have no external ears. The outer ears have an important function: they help the animal identify sounds coming from different elevations. But birds are also able to perceive whether the source of a sound is above them, below them, or at the same level. Now a research team has discovered that birds are able to localize these sounds by utilizing their entire head.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Well look at that...it appears the ostrich is a living fossil!

 

[Drone]

Well look at that...it appears the ostrich is a living fossil!

Haha yeah birds have a pretty long history. More than 110 million years.

Edit: more facts:

Genes link human speech and bird song

As part of a huge effort to sequence and compare the entire genomes of 48 species of birds representing every major order of the bird family tree, researchers have found that vocal learning evolved twice (or maybe three times) among songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds.
Even more striking is that the set of genes involved in each of those song innovations is remarkably similar to the genes involved in human speaking ability.

 

[twilyth]

Possible dark matter signal detected

While poring over data collected by the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton spacecraft, a team of researchers spotted an odd spike in X-ray emissions coming from two different celestial objects — the Andromeda galaxy and the Perseus galaxy cluster.

The signal corresponds to no known particle or atom and thus may have been produced by dark matter, researchers said. [Gallery: Dark Matter Throughout the Universe]

"The signal's distribution within the galaxy corresponds exactly to what we were expecting with dark matter — that is, concentrated and intense in the center of objects and weaker and diffuse on the edges," study co-author Oleg Ruchayskiy, of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, said in a statement.

 

[Drone]

Escape Velocity and Schwarzschild Radius

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vesc.html
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/blkhol.html

 

[twilyth]

Measure Planck's constant and define mass using Legos (umm, and a few other things)

In a paper posted on ArXiv and submitted to the American Journal of Physics, the NIST researchers (joined by collaborators from the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland) show how to build—and understand—a Watt balance that can measure Planck’s constant and mass to within one part in a hundred. The device measures the electric power needed drive an electromagnet to balance a given mass. It uses 392 LEGO bricks, a USB data acquisition (DAQ) controller, a USB-controlled four-channel analog output device, a photodiode, two $15 lasers, some miscellaneous resistors, four ring magnets, some brass rod and a scrap of PVC pipe. The total cost is $633.77 or less: The two USB controllers account for $389 of the price tag; if you have them, or make a less expensive substitution, the project cost plummets.

 

[Drone]

New video shows life in the deepest ocean

It's hard to believe that life is possible under 11 km deep

 

[TheMailMan78]

Great wall of China from "space"....

 

[Ahhzz]

/tag for info thanks for sharing guys

 

[twilyth]

Cool infographic courtesy of XKCD. Click to enlarge.

 

[Steevo]

The "Door" was the fact they had traveled to the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean, not an actual "door".

 

[twilyth]

How oxidative stress harms DNA.

This is a pretty interesting article from NIH since it seems to explain how stress on cells caused by free radicals can damage DNA. What seems to happen is that when a cell is stressed, the number of free nucleotides that are used to build and repair DNA become oxidized. Normally this isn't a problem since the amount of oxidized nucleotides is controlled. But under stress, more may be created and these are then incorporated into DNA. When this happens, any future attempt by DNA polymerase to repair the damage or to replicate the strand of DNA fails.

Wilson and his colleagues saw the process in real time, by forming crystal complexes made of DNA, polymerase, and oxidized nucleotides, and capturing snapshots at different time points through time-lapse crystallography. The procedure not only uncovered the stages of nucleotide insertion, but indicated that the new DNA stopped the DNA repair machinery from sealing the gap. This fissure in the DNA prevented further DNA repair and replication, or caused an immediate double-strand break.

“The damaged nucleotide site is akin to a missing plank in a train track,” Wilson said. “When the engine hits it, the train jumps the track, and all of the box cars collide.”

Large numbers of these pileups and double-strand breaks are lethal to the cell, serving as a jumping off point for the development of disease. However, it can be a good thing if you are a researcher trying to destroy a cancer cell.

But this may turn out to be a boon for dealing with cancer cells that tend to have a lot of oxidized nucleotides. See article to understand how.

After the DNA polymerase (gray molecule in background) inserts a damaged nucleotide into DNA, the damaged nucleotide is unable to bond with its undamaged partner. As a result, the damaged nucleotide swings freely within the DNA, interfering with the repair function or causing double-strand breaks. These steps may ultimately lead to several human diseases. (Graphic courtesy of Bret Freudenthal)

 

[HammerON]

Sub'd.

Saw this on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152603210533845

 

[twilyth]

Ninja squirrels - This may seem like an excuse to post a squirrel video but the behavior of California ground squirrels is actually something that people study. In fact it was discovered a several years ago that a squirrel threatened by a snake can actually increase blood flow to its tail presumably to warn the snake off but possibly also making it more attractive target for the snake than its body. Now it's been discovered that these squirrels have a special getaway technique when they think a snake might be on the prowl.

 

[twilyth]

First LSST mirror completed. I'd heard about this a while ago but wasn't aware of the unique 3 mirror design.

After more than six years of grinding and polishing, the first-ever dual-surface mirror for a major telescope is complete.

In March 2008, a group of people gathered around a giant, red oven in a six-story workshop space beneath the bleachers of the University of Arizona football stadium.

The oven was about 10 meters wide and 2 meters tall, big enough to live in, really. But that day it was rendered less than hospitable by its extreme internal temperature—2200 degrees Fahrenheit—and its persistent spinning at 35 miles per hour. Also, it was full of 22 tons of molten glass.

This was the “high-fire event,” the day the glass reached its melting point, freeing it to flow into a honeycomb-patterned mold on its way to becoming one of the largest telescope mirrors in the world.

Now, after months of cooling and more than six years of grinding and polishing, the mirror is complete.

On Saturday, a new group gathered in the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab—still located under the bleachers—to admire the finished product.

It is the first completed piece of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which will eventually be located on Cerro Pachón, a mountain in Chile. In 2022, the massive mirror will enable LSST scientists to begin the most thorough survey ever of the Southern sky.

Making a movie of the universe
The mirror goes by the name M1M3, and it’s actually two mirrors in one. The outer ring serves as the first mirror, M1, and another, more steeply curved mirror, M3, has been carved out of the center.

LSST will capture and focus images of the night sky by bouncing them through a series of three mirrors. Light will shine onto M1, which will reflect it up to another mirror, the 3.4-meter M2, which will reflect it down to M3, which will reflect it up into the lens of a 3.2-gigapixel camera.

The three-mirror optical system, unique among large telescopes, will allow LSST to take in nearly 10 square degrees of sky with each image—a field of view large enough to fit 40 full moons.

 

[twilyth]

Carbon nucleus "protects" itself by conjuring a particle from the void.

This is both interesting and strange. If I understand the article correctly, a neutrino hitting a carbon nucleus will often be deflected by a pion that appears from the quantum vacuum.

In what they call a “weird little corner” of the already weird world of neutrinos, physicists have found evidence these tiny particles might be involved in a surprising reaction.

Neutrinos are famous for almost never interacting. As an example, ten trillion neutrinos pass through your hand every second, and fewer than one actually interacts with any of the atoms that make up your hand.

“After analyzing the results, we now have overwhelming evidence for the process.”

However, when neutrinos do interact with another particle, it happens at very close distances and involves a high-momentum transfer.

But new findings show neutrinos sometimes interact with a nucleus but leave it basically untouched, inflicting no more than a “glancing blow” resulting in a particle being created out of a vacuum.

“The bubble—a carbon nucleus in the experiment—deflects the neutrino ‘bullet’ by creating a particle from the vacuum,” says Kevin McFarland, professor of physics at University of Rochester.

 

[FireFox]

You are fascinated by these things, aren't you?

 

[Drone]

Our Galaxy is special after all. So it seems ....

Given that our Solar System sits inside the Milky Way Galaxy, getting a clear picture of what it looks like as a whole can be quite tricky. In fact, it was not until 1852 that astronomer Stephen Alexander first postulated that the galaxy was spiral in shape. And since that time, numerous discoveries have come along that have altered how we picture it.

For decades astronomers have thought the Milky Way consists of four arms [made up of stars and clouds of star-forming gas] that extend outwards in a spiral fashion. Then in 2008, data from the Spitzer Space Telescope seemed to indicate that our Milky Way has just two arms, but a larger central bar. But now astronomers say that one of our galaxy's arms may stretch farther than previously thought, reaching all the way around the galaxy.

That's amazing! This would mean the arm is not only the single largest in our galaxy, but is also the only one to effectively reach 360° around the Milky Way. Nothing of the sort has ever been observed with other spiral galaxies.

This arm is known as Scutum-Centaurus, which emanates from one end of the Milky Way bar, passes between us and Galactic Center, and extends to the other side of the galaxy. For many decades, it was believed that was where this arm terminated. However, back in 2011, astronomers Thomas Dame & Patrick Thaddeus spotted what appeared to be an extension of this arm on the other side of the galaxy.

Recently astronomers found 72 new clouds of interstellar gas that line up along a 30000 ly-long spiral-arm. The new arm appears to be the extension of the distant arm recently discovered by Dame & Thaddeus (2011) as well as the Scutum-Centaurus Arm into the outer second quadrant.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

NASATV broadcasts live from International Space Station and many other momentous occasions.
i like watching launches especially.

Today there has been a leak of ammonia on board. Unsurprisingly they arent showing that, but they are showing a lovely view out of the window.


http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv


try this too..... quantum physics in a pint glass.

The lecturer is a bit of a prick but i like the demonstration

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKGZDhQoR9E