The Atlantic has a stunning gallery of the year 2012 in volcanic activity that you really want to check out. Ever since our planet formed from a cloud of condensed stellar dust, the dense heat of our interior has created a molten core surrounded by a thin candy shell of solid rock. That shell continues to evolve, leaking magma via cracks in its moving surface, via events both quiet and violent. Such is the continual evolution of our planet. It’s a beautiful process, assuming you’re looking at it in a photograph, rather than while running in fear from the bottom of the mountain where it’s occurring.
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The Atlantic has a stunning gallery of the year 2012 in volcanic activity that you really want to check out. Ever since our planet formed from a cloud of condensed stellar dust, the dense heat of our interior has created a molten core surrounded by a thin candy shell of solid rock. That shell continues to evolve, leaking magma via cracks in its moving surface, via events both quiet and violent. Such is the continual evolution of our planet. It’s a beautiful process, assuming you’re looking at it in a photograph, rather than while running in fear from the bottom of the mountain where it’s occurring.
Zoom Info

The Atlantic has a stunning gallery of the year 2012 in volcanic activity that you really want to check out.

Ever since our planet formed from a cloud of condensed stellar dust, the dense heat of our interior has created a molten core surrounded by a thin candy shell of solid rock. That shell continues to evolve, leaking magma via cracks in its moving surface, via events both quiet and violent.

Such is the continual evolution of our planet. It’s a beautiful process, assuming you’re looking at it in a photograph, rather than while running in fear from the bottom of the mountain where it’s occurring.

What DNA Actually Looks Like So cool! Italian scientists have “seen” a double helix (or really, a few of them) in higher resolution than ever before. But wait a sec, didn’t Rosalind Franklin do that half a century ago? Here’s the deal: DNA is smaller than the wavelength of visible light. It is, by definition, invisible to us. But by using wavelengths that are even smaller than visible light, like X-rays, we have been able to discern some of the chemical structure of DNA and other molecules. That X-ray technique gave us Rosalind Franklin’s iconic X-in-an-O image that led to the discovery of the double helix. But when we use X-rays, we are really looking at a sort of reflection pattern (or more accurately, “diffraction”) of the rays bouncing off of the atoms that make up DNA, not the DNA itself. It’s like trying to figure out the shape of a hand by looking at shadow puppets. The Italian scientists imaged DNA closer than ever before by dehydrating the double helix onto microscopic silicon pillars, and then shooting it with a beam of electrons. Where the electrons hit the DNA, we see its shape, like a normal camera, just using electrons instead of visible light. What you’re looking at above is not a single double-helix, but rather a thread made of seven double helices stacked together like threads inside yarn. We are looking at the edge of one of those helices.  You can even see the fuzzy little notches of the helical turns and stacked bases! (Read more about it at The Atlantic. I originally wrote that this was a single helix, which it is not. It is a thread of seven and we are looking at the edge of one in that thread.)
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What DNA Actually Looks Like

So cool! Italian scientists have “seen” a double helix (or really, a few of them) in higher resolution than ever before. But wait a sec, didn’t Rosalind Franklin do that half a century ago? Here’s the deal:

DNA is smaller than the wavelength of visible light. It is, by definition, invisible to us. But by using wavelengths that are even smaller than visible light, like X-rays, we have been able to discern some of the chemical structure of DNA and other molecules. That X-ray technique gave us Rosalind Franklin’s iconic X-in-an-O image that led to the discovery of the double helix.

But when we use X-rays, we are really looking at a sort of reflection pattern (or more accurately, “diffraction”) of the rays bouncing off of the atoms that make up DNA, not the DNA itself. It’s like trying to figure out the shape of a hand by looking at shadow puppets.

The Italian scientists imaged DNA closer than ever before by dehydrating the double helix onto microscopic silicon pillars, and then shooting it with a beam of electrons. Where the electrons hit the DNA, we see its shape, like a normal camera, just using electrons instead of visible light. What you’re looking at above is not a single double-helix, but rather a thread made of seven double helices stacked together like threads inside yarn. We are looking at the edge of one of those helices. 

You can even see the fuzzy little notches of the helical turns and stacked bases!

(Read more about it at The Atlantic. I originally wrote that this was a single helix, which it is not. It is a thread of seven and we are looking at the edge of one in that thread.)

Source: The Atlantic

National Geographic’s 2012 Photo Contest I was watching Vsauce recently, which you should be doing whenever you get the chance, and I was pretty shocked when Michael said that almost 10% of all pictures that have ever been taken were taken in the past 12 months! That’s just unbelievable! The proliferation of cameras in everything has made photography simply ubiquitous. You might think that means that everything that can be captured has been captured already, but National Geographic proves that quite wrong with this year’s collection of amazing photography. I’ve picked a couple favorites above, capturing a bioluminescent fungus and a long exposure of tumbling embers. You can see the entire amazing collection at The Atlantic. 
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National Geographic’s 2012 Photo Contest I was watching Vsauce recently, which you should be doing whenever you get the chance, and I was pretty shocked when Michael said that almost 10% of all pictures that have ever been taken were taken in the past 12 months! That’s just unbelievable! The proliferation of cameras in everything has made photography simply ubiquitous. You might think that means that everything that can be captured has been captured already, but National Geographic proves that quite wrong with this year’s collection of amazing photography. I’ve picked a couple favorites above, capturing a bioluminescent fungus and a long exposure of tumbling embers. You can see the entire amazing collection at The Atlantic. 
Zoom Info

National Geographic’s 2012 Photo Contest

I was watching Vsauce recently, which you should be doing whenever you get the chance, and I was pretty shocked when Michael said that almost 10% of all pictures that have ever been taken were taken in the past 12 months! That’s just unbelievable! The proliferation of cameras in everything has made photography simply ubiquitous.

You might think that means that everything that can be captured has been captured already, but National Geographic proves that quite wrong with this year’s collection of amazing photography. I’ve picked a couple favorites above, capturing a bioluminescent fungus and a long exposure of tumbling embers. You can see the entire amazing collection at The Atlantic. 

Source: The Atlantic

Science for the Good of Mankind: Watching Animal Videos Could Give Your Brain a Boost This is the proof you’ve been looking for, folks. A Japanese study into kawaii, or that particular brand of adorableness that only the Japanese can fully articulate, has found that watching cute animal videos or looking at cute animal photos can boost performance on tests of focus and computation. From Megan Garber: “Kawaii things not only make us happier, but also affect our behavior,” the researchers write in the paper. “This study shows that viewing cute things improves subsequent performance in tasks that require behavioral carefulness, possibly by narrowing the breadth of attentional focus.” The effect wasn’t matched by pictures of adult animals. It seems like the feelings of warmth and care-taking that are stimulated by just look at those paws have some unintended side effects when it comes to our ability to think and focus. Thank you, science! (via The Atlantic, sleepy puppies via itstinyiwantit)
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Science for the Good of Mankind: Watching Animal Videos Could Give Your Brain a Boost

This is the proof you’ve been looking for, folks. A Japanese study into kawaii, or that particular brand of adorableness that only the Japanese can fully articulate, has found that watching cute animal videos or looking at cute animal photos can boost performance on tests of focus and computation. From Megan Garber:

“Kawaii things not only make us happier, but also affect our behavior,” the researchers write in the paper. “This study shows that viewing cute things improves subsequent performance in tasks that require behavioral carefulness, possibly by narrowing the breadth of attentional focus.”

The effect wasn’t matched by pictures of adult animals. It seems like the feelings of warmth and care-taking that are stimulated by just look at those paws have some unintended side effects when it comes to our ability to think and focus.

Thank you, science!

(via The Atlantic, sleepy puppies via itstinyiwantit)

Source: The Atlantic

A Conversation With Randall Munroe, the Creator of XKCD

“What I like doing is finding the places in those questions where normal people — or, people who have less spare time than I do — think, “This is stupid,” and stop. I think the really cool and compelling thing about math and physics is that it opens up entry to all these hypotheticals — or at least, it gives you the language to talk about them.”


Enlightening look behind the scenes.

When You Can't Sleep, How Good Is Lying in Bed With Your Eyes Closed?

This was basically me last night.

Clearly exhausted, as I have been a lot lately (dissertations don’t write themselves and genetics classes don’t teach themselves), I closed my eyes expecting sleep, only to lie there for over an hour in a stage of quiet, semi-conscious rest instead of churning out the Z’s. How useful is that for our brains? Are we experiencing any “neural rest” by just lying there in “quiet restfulness”?

Brian Fung analyzes:

Researchers are growing increasingly confident, though, that sleep evolved specifically to recharge the brain. Dr. Chiara Cirelli, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, has been studying the difference between sleep and quiet wake in humans. She says that while we’re awake, all of our neurons are constantly firing, but that when we’re asleep, the neurons revert to an “up-and-down” state in which only some are active at a given time. During some stages of sleep, all neuron activity goes silent. And that’s likely when the restful part of sleep takes place.

So it seems that while our bodies may obtain some rest when in “quiet restfulness”, our brains don’t get much of a recharge. Check out Brian’s post for some interesting facts about dolphin sleep and some tips on how to promote real snooze time..

The Emoticon Turns 30 :-) Check out Megan Garber’s tale of the 1982 Carnegie Mellon bulletin board discussion between physicists that spawned the emoticon. The reason? Someone couldn’t figure out how to make sure their physics joke wasn’t taken too seriously. So :-) was born.  (via The Atlantic)
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The Emoticon Turns 30 :-)

Check out Megan Garber’s tale of the 1982 Carnegie Mellon bulletin board discussion between physicists that spawned the emoticon. The reason? Someone couldn’t figure out how to make sure their physics joke wasn’t taken too seriously.

So :-) was born. 

(via The Atlantic)

Source: The Atlantic

Why We All Have "Internet Addiction Genes" . . . And Why That Doesn't Mean Much

Robert Wright has written a masterful piece over at The Atlantic on why discovering genes that are involved with chemical addiction and also internet addiction are completely unsurprising. We’ve all got them, and the fault does not lie in the machinery itself.

We’ve heard claim after claim recently trying to link frequent and habitual internet use to chemical dependence. In a sense, declaring that the internet is like some sort of drug, we can become addicted to it just like we do cocaine, it can cause autism and dementia, and it is ruining our personal lives.

I do not agree with any of the above statements, to say the least. I do believe that some people display bad behaviors associated with internet use, that can become highly compulsive and detrimental to their lives. But chemical dependencies are very specific biochemical and neurobiological short circuits, involving recptor X, molecule Y, and brain circuits that can look like twisted balls of yarn. Simple behaviors are not chemical dependencies.

This week, a German group reported that they had erased all doubt whether internet addiction is real, because they witnessed the following correlation: Many people who report internet addiction also hold a specific form of a gene involved in nicotine addiction. Basically, if a gene involved in nicotine addiction is also found in these people, it probably has something to do with internet addiction too, right?

Wrong. The genes themselves (and their proteins) are simply the machinery of our brain’s pleasure circuits: “I like this, this is a good thing, I will tell the body it is good by releasing a pleasure chemical so that the body will get me more of this.”

We evolved to form habits. Finding food, sex, pleasurable company and interesting ways to pass our time. Nicotine addiction is one of those habits gone out of control. Perhaps so is some people’s internet use. But the fact is we all hold the genes that make this possible. Everyone has the biochemical potential to become addicted to nicotine. The pleasure machinery is there, just waiting to be misused.

So the identification of a gene in people with bad internet habits that’s also involved in nicotine addiction is simply not surprising. We all have these genes. As Robert Wright notes:

“… forms of internet dependence — porn, Facebook, TMZ, Twitter, YouTube — are just a few of the possible ingredients of any one case of internet “addiction.” And each of these ingredients itself involves God-knows-which neurotransmitters and neuronal receptors and, by extension, God-knows-how-many genes. And all of us have lots and lots of these genes—genes that make us susceptible to internet addiction. Because what the internet does is take lots of things that natural selection designed us to find gratifying and make them much easier to get.

Sure, some of these genes may vary from person to person in ways that make some people particularly susceptible to internet addiction (though environmental influences — e.g. learning self-discipline — presumably play a very big role). In fact, it will probably turn out that lots of genes vary in this way — genes that influence impulsiveness or self-discipline generally, or genes that influence the strength of particular drives, like lust or the urge to gossip. In fact, there will turn out to be so many genes which are so modestly correlated with internet addiction that if journalists write stories every time such a gene is found, or is thought to have been found, they will find that they’re not shedding much actual light on the situation.”

The Martian Hills Where the Curiosity Rover Is Going A new hi-resolution image of the mesa-like layered hills (see those tiny, fine layers in the picture?) that the Curiosity rover will be traveling to explore. It’s these layers, and the timeline of Martian geology that they represent, that hold the history of Martian terrain in milennia past. (via The Atlantic)
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The Martian Hills Where the Curiosity Rover Is Going

A new hi-resolution image of the mesa-like layered hills (see those tiny, fine layers in the picture?) that the Curiosity rover will be traveling to explore. It’s these layers, and the timeline of Martian geology that they represent, that hold the history of Martian terrain in milennia past.

(via The Atlantic)

Source: The Atlantic

Curiosity’s Landing, the View From Those Who Built It

Water on Mars? Pretty rare. Water on my face? Definitely.

Mark Rober is a JPL engineer who has devoted most of his professional life to designing the Curiosity rover. Seven years of work came down to seven nervous minutes last week.

“… what I think makes JPL really great aren’t its robots. It’s the people who build them.”

Mark produced the video above not only to commemorate the mission and the thousands of people behind it, but also the people behind those people. Behind every great scientist are the teachers, family and friends that make all this discovery worth it.

This one’s almost enough to bring a tear to your eye.

(via The Atlantic)

Source: The Atlantic