In your genes

Science we like

[inyourgenes]

I have read his book two years ago and I strongly recommend it! (I'm talking about this book) It's hilarious but it also keeps you thinking.

[inyourgenes]

The galaxy tastes like raspberries!

Researchers searching for amino acids in interstellar space didn't find any amino acids but they did find ethyl formate. Ethyl formate is responsible for the taste of raspberries. So far the trivia of the day.

They also found propyl cyanide. These two molecules are the largest yet discovered in space. The fact that such large molecules are discovered in space gives researchers hope to find amino acids.

No, we didn't find life yet. Not just yet.

Article here.

[inyourgenes]

On how earth wasn't a snowball

The sun didn't always shine as bright as now. 4.5 billion years ago, earth should have been frozen as it didn't get much warmth from the sun yet. However, geological evidence refutes this theory. Why was earth not frozen then? Researchers at the University of Chicago might have found the solution. According to the researchers greenhouse gasses did it. Not the usual suspects (CO2, CH4), but nitrogen and hydrogen are guilty.

We still don't know everything, but this sheds some light on the beginning years of planet earth. Beautiful.

Full article here.

Article by PopSci here.

[inyourgenes]

The womb: safest place on earth.

Image compiled by scientists using ultrasound scans and computer graphics.

Source unknown.

[inyourgenes]

A nice picture by Nordin Seruya. Borneo, Indonesia.

[inyourgenes]

The future of medicine?

Technology, I can't keep up with you.

[inyourgenes]

I just stumbled upon this thing. It's a font to save printer ink. They claim that you can save 28% of printer ink (with the arial font version). The principle is easy: they make tiny holes in the letters that are ignored by the brain. I did a little test and found out that there is only one font available for free here.

I found out that you can actually see the little holes in the letters, if you pay close attention. The free version is only one font. I wouldn't use it for essays and official papers. Maybe, if I don't forget, for printing e-mails or fast printing.

[inyourgenes]

Inspired by visualizations of particle collisions at LHC CERN, wordcollider accelerate two phrases against each other on a collision course. The collision split the words up in their letters, their elementary particles, so to speak. After collision, wordcollider visualize a signature for each letter, based on their phonetic characteristics.

Wordcollider is the result of a processing workshop with Steffen Fiedler. steffenfiedler.com/

[inyourgenes]

[inyourgenes]

I just watched The Artificial Leaf, a finalist in Focus Forward's $200,000 Filmmaker Competition.

Let's make this work people.

[inyourgenes]

A prediction

by KAPdesign. Browse more infographics.

[itsokaytobesmart]

High Speed Chemistry!

Wait, so Destin from Smarter Every Day is hooking up with The Prof from Periodic Table of Videos to film high speed videos of chemical reactions?

How fast can I subscribe? Let’s find out.

Check out: periodicvideos

[inyourgenes]

This looks like fun...

[inyourgenes]

Piaget - Stage 2 - Preoperational - Lack of Conservation (by Fi3021)

Studying developmental psychology, I came across this video. It's part of an experiment from the famous developmental psychologist Jean Piaget. It illustrates the lack of conservation in children that haven't reached the concrete operational stage yet. In the concrete operational stage (about 7 to 11y.), children should be able to conserve quantities, volume, length, mass,...

The thinking error here is due to the disability of the young child to coordinate and organise all actions of the investigator. They are not able to think logically, thus they trust purely on their own perception.

In addition, the child is not yet able to think reversibly. She can't say 'if you pour the water back into the other glass, there's still the same amount of water'.

I didn't expect to find this course so interesting. Now I think it's interesting for two reasons:

1. It's actually quite fascinating to think that I thought in the same way when I was a kid. You feel kind of stupid, no? If you don't, ask your mother for stories to illustrate...

2. There will come a time I will be able to watch this and much more from this course from my own children. I hope :) Let's see if I remember then. If I do, I'll pick up this topic again. Promise.

[inyourgenes]

[inyourgenes]

Plants have feelings, too - plant responses to mechanical stimuli

We all know this example: the mimosa pudica's fast reaction to touch.

In response to a mechanical stimulus a reaction chain is started in the pulvinus cells, leading to a change in turgor pressure. This is about the same mechanism in Dionaea muscipula (venus flytrap), but more complex. See here for more about venus flytrap.

But there's more. Plants respond to touch, but we don't really know how they do it. The role of plant hormones is not to be underestimated. Last thing I read was about jasmonate, a hormone that regulates the plant's growth in response to touch. Not only that: jasmonate increases the plant's resistance to pests, like fungal infections and moth larvae.

Plants can also smell! Cuscuta, a family of parasitic plants, can 'smell' their prey as you can see in this video. It 'sniffs' its way to the tomato plant, to eventually suck out the vital juices. In further research they discovered that Cuscuta is even picky, preferring the juiciest tomato plants. In Daniel Chamovitz's book 'what a plant knows' you can even find more examples. Book excerpt here.

I think there's a lot more to find out about plant senses, and especially about how they react to certain stimuli. Plant hormones play a big role here. We've adapted lots of technologies from animals and we still do. It's time to think in the same way about plants because I'm sure we can find as much applications in plants.

Sources:

First picture

Jasmonate

De Moraes, dodder plant research

[inyourgenes]

Sympecma fusca, more and more present because of global warming. Easy to look over, they don't stand out that much compared to other damselflies, mostly with bright colours.

I made this picture in October in De Panne, Belgium.

[inyourgenes]

Hi, I'm back. I'm planning to reinvigorate this tumblr and make it a worthy science-tumblr, as it should be. I'm not yet sure how I'll do this, but I'm already sure that -from time to time- I will recommend a TED talk. Simply because they are interesting! To begin with this one:

Marcus Byrne: the dance of the dung beetle.

Byrne reminds us how interesting a little creature like a dung beetle can be. He talks about how they deal with dung. Byrne and his team discovered that the beetles choose their direction according to a pattern of polarized light in the sky. It performs a little 'dance' every now and then to reorientate. That same dance has another function: thermoregulation. I won't tell you more, the only advice I give is watch the video. We can learn from dung beetles!