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Start the year well

Reach out from your black mood and contact someone who loves you (me).

Change your behaviour to ways that are difficult to do but will lead away from depression and despair.

Research was inspired by work on power dynamics in chimpanzees

i know kind of surgeon I want....

Hypothetical device could work with nearly 100% efficiency, theorists calculate

New robotic claw can scoop up delicate sea creatures without harm

currentsinbiology

On the cellular highway, motor proteins called dyneins rule the road. Dyneins "walk" along structures called microtubules to deliver cellular cargo, such as signaling molecules and organelles, to different parts of a cell. Without dynein on the job, cells cannot divide and people can develop neurological diseases.

Now a new study, which appears in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, provides the first three-dimensional (3D) visualization of the dynein-dynactin complex bound to microtubules. The study leaders from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) report that a protein called dynactin hitches two dyneins together, like a yoke locking together a pair of draft horses.

“If you want a team of horses to move in one direction, you need to line them up,” says Gabriel C. Lander, PhD, a TSRI associate professor and senior author of the study. “That’s exactly what dynactin is doing to dynein molecules.”

More information: Danielle A. Grotjahn et al, Cryo-electron tomography reveals that dynactin recruits a team of dyneins for processive motility, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41594-018-0027-7 The dynein-dynactin complex (multi-color) motors down a microtubule (green). The four motor domains are shown in yellow. Dynactin (blue) provides the scaffold to keep the two dyneins together. Credit: Danielle Grotjohn, Lander Lab

amor-por-los-cactus

dangeroustoast-blog

Magnetic ball in magnetic putty

more-choices

CONSUME

currentsinbiology

When Our World Turns ‘Upside-Down,’ Serotonin Helps Us Deal With It

Serotonin, one of the major chemical messengers serving neuronal communication, is usually associated with the direct regulation of affective states and mood in general. But growing evidence suggests that one of the core functions of this neurotransmitter may be to facilitate our adaptation to changes in the world around us – which, in turn, may indirectly impact mood.

Previous studies have shown that an animal’s flexibility to adapt to an unfamiliar environment is in fact related to the amount of serotonin available in certain areas of the brain. When those amounts are decreased, adaptability is impaired. However, the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain unknown.

To begin elucidating them, neuroscientists at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, in Lisbon, Portugal, analyzed the activity of serotonin-producing neurons in the mouse brain (located in an area called the raphe nuclei), when the animals’ familiar environment was suddenly turned “upside-down”.

Source: Maria Joao Soares – Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown

And then, something happened which the team had not been expecting: right after the rules were changed, there was a second serotonin spike. According to the authors, this increase in the neurons’ activity is exclusively due to the “surprise effect” brought about by the sudden reversal of the environmental conditions with which the mice are familiar – and not to any prediction of the outcome. NeuroscienceNews image is for illustrative purposes only.

scarletqueens-deactivated201708

scienceshenanigans

wibblywobblyscienceywiencey

Hello! Ok so my major is Chemical Engineering and I have a HUGE problem learning math and science in general, but I really love the idea of it all. Could you tell me some success stories that could push me a little more into keep believing? And what books would you recommend reading about Chemistry. Also, how may I increase my learning ability into understanding more about math and science, especially math ..I have small anxiety attacks when I don't understand it 😔

Oops! So sorry for the delay in answering. I haven’t been on this blog in ages.

I don’t know of any outright success stories, unfortunately :-/ However, it’s important to stay as calm as possible if you’re trying to learn or understand math and science. If you don’t know it immediately, that’s okay! Just take a breath, and reread the problem. I’ve found it very helpful to write down all of the numbers you’re given, and then write what you’re trying to find. Baby steps are often the way to go with solving a problem. And units are a blessing in disguise. If you know the units you’re starting with, and you know the units you want to end up with, it’s easier to try and figure out the steps needed to get you into the ending units.

And I don’t know of any outright books about chemistry (apart from textbooks), but usually journal articles are the way to go. You can peruse sites like PubMed for articles on topics you’re interested in. These papers are sometimes very dense, and it can take a few read-throughs to figure out the point the authors are trying to make, but they are a really great resource to learn more about all areas in science.

I hope you found this answer somewhat helpful (and that you even see it). Good luck Nonnie!

scienceisbeauty

Sometimes you stumble with a lovely kid interaction with a pleasant NASA chief, and other times with a stupidly clever cartoon that make you laugh. I love both kinds of trips, is the human touch, you have to share it.

Via The Elegance of Reason (FB)

materialsscienceandengineering

NRL issued patent for solar microbial fuel cell

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, has received a U.S. patent for a self-assembling, self-repairing, and self-contained microbial photoelectrochemical solar cell driven entirely by sunlight and microorganisms.

A solar microbial fuel cell (SMFC) is a non-semiconductor-based system, which employs microorganisms to generate electric power by photosynthetically replenishing reactants of a sealed microbial fuel cell using sunlight.

The SMFC reactants (glucose and oxygen) are internally regenerated by a group of photosynthetic microbes whose reactants, carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O), are the products of the microbial fuel cell. This interdependency results in many thousands of hours of long-term electricity generation from sunlight without replenishment of the microbial fuel cell reactants.

“Natural photosynthetic systems, such as trees and algae blooms, self-repair, a property that makes them highly durable,” said Dr. Lenny Tender, research chemist, Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering. “Here, we incorporate photosynthetic organisms with the self-assembling and self-maintaining benthic microbial fuel cell (BMFC) to enable durable land-based photoelectrochemical solar cells.”

materialsscienceandengineering

How do Transition lenses work?

Well, first, before we can answer that question, we’re going to have to correct a common misconception. Transitions is a specific brand name, like Kleenex or Hoover. The proper term for these kind of glasses would be photochromic glass, coming from the root words meaning light and color.

So the real question is, how do photochromic lenses work?

Answer: By adding silver and copper halides (usually chlorine, occasionally bromine) dispersed throughout the glass.

Now for the mechanism behind the reaction (we’ll be assuming chlorine is the halide used). UV light reacts with the silver chloride, separating the two ions. When the UV light further reacts with the negative chlorine ion, it produces an electron that reacts with the positive silver ion.

That leaves neutral silver and chlorine atoms in the glass, which build up in clusters to darken the appearance. These clusters are small enough not to be seen, but large enough to block further UV light from going through the glass.

Where does the copper come in? Well that’s what makes the process reversible, allowing your tinted lenses to return to their clear state. Without the UV light, the silver and chloride atoms are able to react with the copper chloride, returning them to their former silver chloride compound.

Source. Image Source.

vampireapologist-archive-deacti

learning to let go and learning to relax means just freaking sticking those stickers on something. stop worrying if it’s the right place. burn that nice candle you’ve had for a year. it doesn’t need a special occasion. I’m gonna use those fancy soaps I’ve been collecting in a drawer even though they look so pretty and it means I’ll use them up. everything is temporary so just enjoy the littlest pleasures you can possibly have we all need to just let go and enjoy things while they last. the sticker’s gonna look fine on your water bottle I promise

materialsscienceandengineering

Superstrong Al alloys may change manufacturing processes for automobiles, aerospace devices

Purdue University researchers have developed a superstrong material that may change some manufacturing processes for the aerospace and automobile industries.

The Purdue team, led by Xinghang Zhang, a professor in Purdue’s School of Materials Engineering, created high-strength aluminum alloy coatings. According to Zhang, there is an increasing demand for such materials because of their advantages for automakers and aerospace industries.

“We have created a very durable and lightweight aluminum alloy that is just as strong as, and possibly stronger than, stainless steel,” Zhang said. “Our aluminum alloy is lightweight and provides flexibility that stainless steel does not in many applications.”

Another member of the Purdue team, Yifan Zhang, a graduate student in materials engineering, said the aluminum alloy they created could be used for making wear- and corrosion-resistant automobile parts such as engines and coatings for optical lenses for specialized telescopes in the aerospace industry.

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