Science Stoned

This is a blog where science discussion is encouraged. The discussions I post will cover topics on anything science related. Questions about seemingly simple subjects will be broken down to science to the best of my ability. I am a sophomore in college studying physics. I post doodles and science sketches also...anything science related really. Articles var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-27508490-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

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Help Me so I Compete in the Submissions Only Tournament

Funding athletes into champions. MAKEACHAMP.com is a fundraising platform that helps athletes accomplish their goals.

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Chemists Synthesize Artificial Cell Membrane

Discovery

 Using a novel chemical reaction, they have created self-assembling cell membranes, the structural envelopes that contain and support the reactions required for life.

Long Term Goal

to try to make an artificial cell, a synthetic living unit from the bottom up -- to make a living organism from non-living molecules that have never been through or touched a living organism

Why would this help us?

Presumably this occurred at some point in the past. Otherwise life wouldn't exist.

By assembling an essential component of earthly life with no biological precursors, they hope to illuminate life's origins.

We don't understand this really fundamental step in our existence, which is how non-living matter went to living matter. 

So this is a really ripe area to try to understand what knowledge we lack about how that transition might have occurred. That could teach us a lot -- even the basic chemical, biological principles that are necessary for life.

Molecules that make up cell membranes have heads that mix easily with water and tails that repel it.

In water, they form a double layer with heads out and tails in, a barrier that sequesters the contents of the cell.

How do they do it?

Devaraj and Budin created similar molecules with a novel reaction that joins two chains of lipids.Nature uses complex enzymes that are themselves embedded in membranes to accomplish this, making it hard to understand how the very first membranes came to be.

In our system, we use a sort of primitive catalyst, a very simple metal ion

The reaction itself is completely artificial. There's no biological equivalent of this chemical reaction. This is how you could have a de novo formation of membranes.

They created the synthetic membranes from a watery emulsion of an oil and a detergent. Alone it's stable. Add copper ions and sturdy vesicles and tubules begin to bud off the oil droplets. After 24 hours, the oil droplets are gone, "consumed" by the self-assembling membranes.

Fully artificial life will require the union of both an information-carrying genome and a three-dimensional structure to house it.

The real value of this discovery might reside in its simplicity. From commercially available precursors, the scientists needed just one preparatory step to create each starting lipid chain.

"It's trivial and can be done in a day," Devaraj said. "New people who join the lab can make membranes from day one."

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering supported this work. UC San Diego has filed a patent application on this discovery.

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Graphene: Supermaterial Goes Superpermeable

Discovery

Wonder material graphene has revealed another of its extraordinary properties -- University of Manchester researchers have found that it is superpermeable with respect to water.

Graphene's Properties

 It is the thinnest known material in the universe and the strongest ever measured.

It conducts electricity and heat better than any other material.

It is the stiffest one too and, at the same time, it is the most ductile. 

Graphene Oxide ( The Discovery)

Graphene oxide is the same graphene sheet but it is randomly covered with other molecules such as hydroxyl groups OH-.

Graphene oxide sheets stack on top of each other and form a laminate.

The researchers prepared such laminates that were hundreds times thinner than a human hair but remained strong, flexible and were easy to handle.

Graphene Oxide's Amazing Properties

When a metal container was sealed with such a film(of graphene oxide), even the most sensitive equipment was unable to detect air or any other gas, including helium, to leak through.

It came as a complete surprise that, when the researchers tried the same with ordinary water, they found that it evaporates without noticing the graphene seal.

Water molecules diffused through the graphene-oxide membranes with such a great speed that the evaporation rate was the same independently whether the container was sealed or completely open.

Dr Rahul Nair, who was leading the experimental work, offers the following explanation

Graphene oxide sheets arrange in such a way that between them there is room for exactly one layer of water molecules.

They arrange themselves in one molecule thick sheets of ice which slide along the graphene surface with practically no friction.

If another atom or molecule tries the same trick, it finds that graphene capillaries either shrink in low humidity or get clogged with water molecules.

Uses (Obvious)

This unique property can be used in situations where one needs to remove water from a mixture or a container, while keeping in all the other ingredients

Just for a laugh, we sealed a bottle of vodka with our membranes and found that the distilled solution became stronger and stronger with time.

BUT.....

The Manchester researchers report this experiment in their Science paper, too, but they say they do not envisage use of graphene in distilleries, nor offer any immediate ideas for applications.

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Huge Solar Storm Hits Earth TODAY

http://www.space.com/14319-huge-solar-eruption-sparks-radiation-storm.html

"Early this morning (0359 GMT Jan. 23, which corresponds to late Sunday, Jan. 22 at 10:59 p.m. EST), NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught an extreme ultraviolet flash from a huge eruption on the sun , according to the skywatching website Spaceweather.com."

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 Scientific sketch of a Butterfly that I drew over winter break

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Microbes: The Black Death/ Bubonic Plague

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A never-ending hotel, always full of guests, helps to explain the nature of infinity.

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Genetic Engineering

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Human Genome

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Michio is the man

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DNA 

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String theorists squeeze nine dimensions into three

Subject

A simulation of the early universe using string theory may explain why space has three observable spatial dimensions instead of nine.

What is String Theory?

The leading mathematical explanation of physics goes beyond modern particle theory by positing tiny bits of vibrating string as the fundamental basis of matter and forces.

String theory also requires that the universe have six or more spatial dimensions in addition to the ones observed in everyday life.

Explaining how those extra dimensions are hidden is a central challenge for string theorists.

“This new paper demonstrates, for the first time, that our 3-D space appears naturally … from the 9-D space that string theory originally has,”

About the Simulation

In the simulation, the universe starts off as a tiny blob of strings that is symmetric in nine different dimensions.

As the strings interact, a random energy fluctuation — provided by the quantum laws that govern these small scales — breaks the symmetry.

Three dimensions balloon outward, leaving the other six stunted at a billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a centimeter, far too small to be detected.

Applying string theory to the beginning of the universe in this way has long proven difficult.

 the math included in traditional versions of the theory can be solved only when strings interact weakly at low temperatures, not in the seething maelstrom that existed moments after the Big Bang.

To tackle the extreme energies of the Big Bang...

Nishimura and his team had to recast one version of string theory, called IIB, as grids of equations that could be fed into a supercomputer.

Limited by the power of this computer, the researchers could track the interactions of no more than 32 strings for the first split second of history.

For some physicists, this way of approximating string theory is too oversimplified to be believable. “Frameworks like the one they're using … lack a lot of other stuff that goes into trying to make a realistic model,” says Shamit Kachru, a theoretical physicist at Stanford University.

To prove the usefulness of the new approach, Nishimura’s team will need to study times much later in the universe’s history, comparing their results against real observations of how matter is distributed across the universe.

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Offsetting Global Warming: Molecule in Earth's Atmosphere Could 'Cool the Planet'

Discovery

Scientists have shown that a newly discovered molecule in Earth's atmosphere has the potential to play a significant role in off-setting global warming by cooling the planet.

We have been able to quantify how fast Criegee radicals react for the first time.

About the newly discovered molecule - Criegee biradicals

invisible chemical intermediates are powerful oxidisers of pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, produced by combustion, and can naturally clean up the atmosphere.

chemical intermediates were hypothesised in the 1950s, it is only now that they have been detected.

Criegee biradicals react more rapidly than first thought and will accelerate the formation of sulphate and nitrate in the atmosphere. 

These compounds will lead to aerosol formation and ultimately to cloud formation with the potential to cool the planet.

"The main source of these Criegee biradicals does not depend on sunlight and so these processes take place throughout the day and night."

 "A significant ingredient required for the production of these Criegee biradicals comes from chemicals released quite naturally by plants, so natural ecosystems could be playing a significant role in off-setting warming."

HOW they discovered it (the boring science stuff)

The detection of the Criegee biradical and measurement of how fast it reacts was made possible by a unique apparatus, designed by Sandia researchers, that uses light from a third-generation synchrotron facility, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Advanced Light Source.

The intense, tunable light from the synchrotron allowed researchers to discern the formation and removal of different isomeric species -- molecules that contain the same atoms but arranged in different combinations.

BONUS FACTS

In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about 0.8 °C with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades.

Most countries have agreed that drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are required, and that future global warming should be limited to below 2.0 °C (3.6 °F)

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Altitude

Highest point

The highest point measured from sea level is the summit of Mount Everest that borders Nepal and Tibet, and has been reached by roughly 3,000 climbers, the first confirmed in 1953 (with speculation that it may have been reached in 1924).

While measurements of its height vary slightly, the elevation of its peak is usually given as 8,848 m (29,029 ft) above sea level.

The point farthest from the Earth's center 

The summit of Chimborazo, in Ecuador, at 6,384.4 km (3,967.1 mi). 

This is due to the Earth being an oblate spheroid rather than a perfect sphere. 

An oblate spheroid is very much like a sphere except wider in the center. 

This means that Chimborazo, which is near the equator, is farther away from the center. 

The summit of Mount Everest is 2.168 km (1 mi) shorter at 6,382.3 km (3,965.8 mi) from Earth's center. 

Peru's Huascarán contends closely with Chimborazo, the difference in the mountains' heights being less than the 2-kilometre (1 mi) measurement error.

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String Theory explanation by Michio Kaku

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Organism which can survive nearly uninhabitable, extreme conditions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss_piglets