Cool Science Stuff

[bobsyeruncle]

Astronaut’s-Eye View of NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Re-entry

New video recorded during NASA’s Orion return through Earth’s atmosphere provides viewers a taste of what the vehicle endured as it returned through Earth’s atmosphere during its Dec. 5 flight test.

The video begins 10 minutes before Orion's 11:29 a.m. EST splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, just as the spacecraft was beginning to experience Earth's atmosphere. Peak heating from the friction caused by the atmosphere rubbing against Orion's heat shield comes less than two minutes later, and the footage shows the plasma created by the interaction change from white to yellow to lavender to magenta as the temperature increases. The video goes on to show the deployment of Orion’s parachutes and the final splash as it touches down.

Astronaut’s-Eye View of NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Re-entry

 

[bobsyeruncle]

An amazing first image of the sun from NASA's NuSTAR, Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array

Via NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, this amazing image is one of the first shot by the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR.

http://boingboing.net/2014/12/22/nustars-amazing-first-image.html

 

[InMyImage]

Now this is the way to start a thread about science. Nice job

 

[Midniteoyl]

Now this is the way to start a thread about science. Nice job

I tried that.. it devolved into a 'life out there vs creationism' thread...

 

[InMyImage]

Edited so that any someones who follow don't screw this thread up based on something I said that had nothing to do with this thread

 

[Midniteoyl]

We talking about the same thread? LOL I posted something about the new HD photo of Andromeda, and it went to 'why do people still believe in Creationism?' real quick... luckily though, it isnt still going as some trolls didnt find before it died..

 

[InMyImage]

We talking about the same thread? LOL I posted something about the new HD photo of Andromeda, and it went to 'why do people still believe in Creationism?' real quick... luckily though, it isnt still going as some trolls didnt find before it died..

LOL, I did think you were talking about a completely different thread

 

[glassgrl]

Picture of the day is a pretty cool site. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

 

[zaroba]

Do any of you get Nasa's TV station?

I get it on DirecTV, the few time's I have looked at it they were showing live feed from the international space station. Pretty cool, although boring. Watching the astronauts floating around or sitting at their consoles and talking mission stuff with Houston.

 

[bobsyeruncle]

I tried that.. it devolved into a 'life out there vs creationism' thread...

Ah well, there's still the atheism thread for the creationist trolls.

 

[kelli]

Ah well, there's still the atheism thread for the creationist trolls.

now it would be nice if you could help me get a music thread going. hint, hint

 

[bobsyeruncle]

I can do that but there's going to be a lot fewer rules than what you're used to.

 

[bobsyeruncle]

Done.

http://vapingunderground.com/threads/the-music-game.50280/

 

[bobsyeruncle]

Researchers show neutrinos can deliver not only full-on hits but also ‘glancing blows’

In what they call a “weird little corner” of the already weird world of neutrinos, physicists have found evidence that 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. However, when neutrinos do interact with another particle, it happens at very close distances and involves a high-momentum transfer.

And yet a new paper, published in Physical Review Letters this week, shows that neutrinos sometimes can also 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.

http://www.rochester.edu/newscenter...y-full-on-hits-but-also-glancing-blows-84012/

 

[Midniteoyl]

Researchers show neutrinos can deliver not only full-on hits but also ‘glancing blows’



http://www.rochester.edu/newscenter...y-full-on-hits-but-also-glancing-blows-84012/

Soo... Cancer?

 

[bobsyeruncle]

Cancer is a lot about genetics and luck. Everybody has cancer but it's usually kept in check. So, no. This one's just about neutrinos.

 

[Midniteoyl]

Cancer is a lot about genetics and luck. Everybody has cancer but it's usually kept in check. So, no. This one's just about neutrinos.

Well... kinda. When a cell divides and something is messed up in the DNA, its suppose to self destruct. In cancer, that self destruct is also messed up, so the cell rapidly divides over and over. Your immune system doesnt recognize the damaged cells as 'bad', so do nothing.. (brief explanation).. So, what I was thinking, and Im not the only one, is just what causes the DNA to mess up? Especially the self destruct part? Well, 'free-radicals' is the standard answer.. So what are free-radicals? Free radicals are molecules with unpaired electrons. In their quest to find another electron, they are very reactive and cause damage to surrounding molecules. But, what if getting hit from a neutrino is what actually does it?

 

[bobsyeruncle]

10 trillion neutrinos pass through your hand every second ....

 

[Midniteoyl]

10 trillion neutrinos pass through your hand every second ....

And it only takes one hitting in the right place..

 

[bobsyeruncle]

No one's tied neutrinos to DNA mutations or DNA copy errors that I know of.

DNA can mutate due to:

(1) spontaneous mutations (molecular decay)
(2) mutations due to error prone replication bypass of naturally occurring DNA damage (also called error prone translesion synthesis)
(3) errors introduced during DNA repair
(4) induced mutations caused by mutagens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation#Causes

 

[bobsyeruncle]

On the subject of cancer, you might find this interesting:

Ted Talks: Can we eat to starve cancer? - William Li

 

[InMyImage]

More of a tech item, but still pretty cool and relevant even today.

 

[bobsyeruncle]

A couple of bits on telomeres:

Telomeres are the protective caps on the ends of the strands of DNA called chromosomes, which house our genomes. In young humans, telomeres are about 8,000-10,000 nucleotides long. They shorten with each cell division, however, and when they reach a critical length the cell stops dividing or dies. This internal "clock" makes it difficult to keep most cells growing in a laboratory for more than a few cell doublings.

"Now we have found a way to lengthen human telomeres by as much as 1,000 nucleotides, turning back the internal clock in these cells by the equivalent of many years of human life," said Helen Blau, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford and director of the university's Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology. "This greatly increases the number of cells available for studies such as drug testing or disease modeling."

Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds | Medical Xpress

And a video:

Curing Aging through Telomere Biology.

 

[No Ash More Cash]

Watched a Doc today on Netflix about the sun's Evil twin "Nemesis"...It wasn't this one but it's about the same thing

 

[bluraff3]

I'm currently addicted to radiolab. I found this one really cool:
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect...b_podcast/radiolab_podcast13timesachangin.mp3
But they're all pretty great.

 

[bobsyeruncle]

The Solar System Barycenter

 

[zaroba]

 

[Midniteoyl]

Smilies in Space

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ubble-smiley-face-emoji-outer-space/23164207/

 

[bobsyeruncle]

Scientists discover organism that hasn’t evolved in more than 2 billion years | UCLA

The scientists examined sulfur bacteria, microorganisms that are too small to see with the unaided eye, that are 1.8 billion years old and were preserved in rocks from Western Australia’s coastal waters. Using cutting-edge technology, they found that the bacteria look the same as bacteria of the same region from 2.3 billion years ago — and that both sets of ancient bacteria are indistinguishable from modern sulfur bacteria found in mud off of the coast of Chile.

“The rule of biology is not to evolve unless the physical or biological environment changes, which is consistent with Darwin,” said Schopf, who also is director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life. The environment in which these microorganisms live has remained essentially unchanged for 3 billion years, he said.

“These microorganisms are well-adapted to their simple, very stable physical and biological environment,” he said. “If they were in an environment that did not change but they nevertheless evolved, that would have shown that our understanding of Darwinian evolution was seriously flawed.”

 

[bobsyeruncle]

Stacked Ball Drop

 

[NGAHaze]

Tomorrow is not only Albert Einstein's birthday it is also Pi day
Pi Day 2015: Ten digits represented on March 14 at 9:26:53.

 

[bobsyeruncle]

Relativity Simplified