Tag: assistant (page 2 of 3)

Fish play for fun just like other animals, study says

October 22, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Excerpt from techtimes.comYou may not be able to play a proper game of fetch with fish, but that doesn't mean they don't know how to have fun. It turns out that some species of fish play to have fun just like other animals, according to a new stud...

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Researchers make 32 differently-shaped DNA crystals – is this the future of nanotech?

October 22, 2014 / / 0 Comments



Researchers have achieved 32 different–shaped crystal structures using the DNA–brick self–assembly method. (Photo : Harvard’s Wyss Institute)

Excerpt from
zmescience.com 

A team at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering demonstrated the latest advances in programmable DNA self-assembly by crystallizing 32 structures with precisely prescribed depths and complex 3D features. The DNA crystals could potentially be used as the basis of a programmable material platform that would allow scientists to build extremely precise and complex structures rivaling the complexity of many molecular machines we see in nature – all from the bottom up!

Nanotechnology like Lego

For the past twenty years or so, there’s been a lot of interest shown into designing large DNA crystals of various desired shapes by exploiting DNA’s inherent ability to self-assemble. We’re recently beginning to see the fruits of this labor, first in 2012 when the same team described their “DNA-brick self-assembly” method that allowed them to build more than 100 3D complex nanostructures about the size of viruses. The 32 designs reported in this latest research are 1000 times larger, close to the size of a speck of dust, which makes them closer to applicable scale where they can be used practically.

With conventional methods of DNA assembly, the resulting design tends to become more and more imperfect as you scale the design because at each step there’s a risk of error. The technique developed at Harvard is different because since it uses short, synthetic strands of DNA that work like interlocking Lego® bricks to build complex structures – it’s a modular design. Each structure first starts off as a computer model of a molecular cube (the master canvas), then individual DNA bricks are removed or added independently until a desired shape is met. These bricks bind to as many as four neighboring strands or bricks. Thus, two bricks connect to one another at a 90-degree angle to form a 3D shape, just like a pair of two-stud Lego bricks. Each individual brick is coded in such a way that they self-assemble in a desired 3-D shape. What’s fantastic is that this method allows for intricate shapes to built on an extremely tiny scale opening up a slew of applications. For instance, a cube built up from 1,000 such bricks (10 by 10 by 10) measures just 25 nanometers in width – thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair!
“Therein lies the key distinguishing feature of our design strategy—its modularity,” said co-lead author Yonggang Ke, Ph.D., formerly a Wyss Institute Postdoctoral Fellow and now an assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. “The ability to simply add or remove pieces from the master canvas makes it easy to create virtually any design.”

Precision controlled DNA

Most importantly, this modularity allows precision control of the structure’s depth. This is the first time that anyone has been able to design crystal depth with nanometer precision, up to 80 nm, as opposed to  two-dimensional DNA lattices which are typically single-layer structures with only 2 nm depth.
“DNA crystals are attractive for nanotechnology applications because they are comprised of repeating structural units that provide an ideal template for scalable design features”, said co-lead author graduate student Luvena Ong.

 “Peng’s team is using the DNA-brick self-assembly method to build the foundation for the new landscape of DNA nanotechnology at an impressive pace,” said Wyss Institute Founding Director Don Ingber, M.D., Ph.D. “What have been mere visions of how the DNA molecule could be used to advance everything from the semiconductor industry to biophysics are fast becoming realities.”

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Our Milky Way strips nearby galaxies of star-forming hydrogen

October 18, 2014 / / 0 Comments


Artist's impression of the Milky Way. Its hot halo appears to be stripping away the star-forming atomic hydrogen from its companion dwarf spheroidal galaxies. Image credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF
Artist’s impression of the Milky Way. Its hot halo appears to be stripping away the star-forming atomic hydrogen from its companion dwarf spheroidal galaxies. Image credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF

Excerpt from
earthsky.org

Astronomers have discovered that our nearest galactic neighbors are devoid of star-forming gas, and that our Milky Way is to blame.

New observations by large radio telescopes reveal that within a well-defined boundary around our galaxy, dwarf galaxies are completely devoid of hydrogen gas. Beyond this point, dwarf galaxies are teeming with star-forming material. 

The Milky Way galaxy is actually the largest member of a compact clutch of galaxies that are bound together by gravity. Swarming around our home galaxy is a menagerie of smaller dwarf galaxies, the smallest of which are the relatively nearby dwarf spheroidals, which may be the leftover building blocks of galaxy formation.

Further out are a number of similarly sized and slightly misshaped dwarf irregular galaxies, which are not gravitationally bound to the Milky Way and may be relative newcomers to our galactic neighborhood.

Kristine Spekkens is an assistant professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and lead author on a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. She said:
"Astronomers wondered if, after billions of years of interaction, the nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxies have all the same star-forming ‘stuff’ that we find in more distant dwarf galaxies."

Previous studies have shown that the more distant dwarf irregular galaxies have large reservoirs of neutral hydrogen gas, the fuel for star formation. These past observations, however, were not sensitive enough to rule out the presence of this gas in the smallest dwarf spheroidal galaxies. 

Spekkens said:
"What we found is that there is a clear break, a point near our home galaxy where dwarf galaxies are completely devoid of any traces of neutral atomic hydrogen."
 Bottom line: New observations by large radio telescopes reveal that within a well-defined boundary around our galaxy, dwarf galaxies are completely devoid of star-making hydrogen gas. Astronomers say our Milky Way is to blame.

Known Milky Way satellite galaxies. Click here for more about this diagram.
Neighboring galaxies to our own Milky Way (Descriptions below)
 

NAME DISTANCE (kpc) DISCOVERY PAPER
Canes Major 7.2Martin et al. 2004, A dwarf galaxy remnant in Canis Major: the fossil of an in-plane accretion on to the Milky Way
Segue 317 Belokurov et al. 2010, Big Fish, Little Fish: Two New Ultra-Faint Satellites of the Milky Way
Segue 123 Belokurov et al. 2007, Cats and Dogs, Hair and A Hero: A Quintet of New Milky Way Companions
Sagittarius24Ibata, Gilmore & Irwin, 1994, A dwarf satellite galaxy in Sagittarius 1995, Sagittarius: the nearest dwarf galaxy
Segue 234.7 Belokurov et al. 2009, The discovery of Segue 2: a prototype of the population of satellitesof satellites
Bootes II 43 Walsh, Jerjen & Willman, 2007, A Pair of Bootes: A New Milky Way Satellite
Coma 44 Belokurov et al. 2007, Cats and Dogs, Hair and A Hero: A Quintet of New Milky Way Companions
Willman 1 (SDSSJ1049+5103) 45Willman et al. 2005, A New Milky Way Companion: Unusual Globular Cluster or Extreme Dwarf Satellite?
Bootes III 46Grillmair 2009, Four New Stellar Debris Streams in the Galactic Halo
LMC 50.8-
SMC 59.7-
Bootes 60 Belokurov et al. 2006, A Faint New Milky Way Satellite in Bootes
Ursa Minor 66A.G. Wilson of the Lowell Observatory in 1955, Sculptor-Type Systems in the Local Group of Galaxies
Sculptor (Scl) 79discovered in 1938 by Harlow Shapley, A Stellar System of a New Type
Draco 82 A.G. Wilson of the Lowell Observatory in 1955, Sculptor-Type Systems in the Local Group of Galaxies
Sextans 89 Mike Irwin, M.T. Bridgeland, P.S. Bunclark and R.G. McMahon, 1990 A new satellite galaxy of the Milky Way in the constellation of Sextans
Ursa Major (UMa) 100Willman et al. 2005, A New Milky Way Dwarf Galaxy in Ursa Major
Carina 103Cannon, R. D., Hawarden, T. G., & Tritton, S. B., 1977, A new Sculptor-type dwarf elliptical galaxy in Carina
Hercules 140 Belokurov et al. 2007, Cats and Dogs, Hair and A Hero: A Quintet of New Milky Way Companions
Fornax 140discovered in 1938 by Harlow Shapley, described in "Two Stellar Systems of a New Kind", Nature, Vol. 142, p. 715
Canes Venatici II 150 Sakamoto & Hasegawa 2006, Discovery of a Faint Old Stellar System at 150 kpc
Leo IV 160 Belokurov et al. 2007, Cats and Dogs, Hair and A Hero: A Quintet of New Milky Way Companions
Pisces II 182 Belokurov et al. 2010, Big Fish, Little Fish: Two New Ultra-Faint Satellites of The Milky Way
Leo II (Leo B) 208 Robert G. Harrington and Albert George Wilson, 1950, Two New Stellar Systems in Leo
Canes Venatici 220Zucker et al. 2006 A New Milky Way Dwarf Satellite in Canes Venatici
Leo I 254 Robert G. Harrington and Albert George Wilson, 1950, Two New Stellar Systems in Leo

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Going Within – The Door To Higher Consciousness

September 25, 2014 / / 0 Comments

by Michelle Walling, CHLCWhat does it mean to go within? This question is on the mind of most people who are awakening to the multidimensionality of this reality. Many people have different experiences but there is one similar thread that all people need to know about. The meaning of going within The term “going within” is the method by which we discover who we truly are.To go within simply means to be with yourself, to listen to yourself and your higher self, and to feel yo [...]

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How you can conduct the reality-shifting quantum eraser experiment at home

September 21, 2014 / / 0 Comments

If you haven't yet viewed the remarkable 'reality-changing' quantum experiment known as the 'double slit' experiment posted here yesterday, I highly recommend you take a few moments and enjoy it as it is quite amazing. In essence, what this experiment ...

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So what is a supermassive black hole anyway?

September 19, 2014 / / 0 Comments


Artist's rendering of a black hole recently discovered in the ultracompact dwarf galaxy M60-UCD1.

csmonitor.com

The discovery of a supermassive black hole inside a tiny dwarf galaxy has shed new light on the potential number of black holes in the universe.

An international team of researchers has discovered a supermassive black hole in M60-UCD1, a dwarf galaxy some 54-million light years away. M60-UCD1 is about 500 times smaller than our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and 1,000 times less massive. The researchers published their findings Wednesday in Nature.

Scientists have previously identified numerous supermassive black holes throughout the universe – including one at the center of the Milky Way. But this is the first time that any of these largest types of black holes have been found in such a small galaxy, says study lead author Anil Seth, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy University of Utah in Salt Lake City. 

The revelation that a supermassive black hole can exist within an ultracompact dwarf galaxy could mean that there might be twice as many of these largest black holes than astronomers previously thought.

Black holes come in several different varieties, all of which are characterized by a dense concentration of mass compressed into a tiny space and a gravitational force so powerful it keeps light from escaping.

The smallest kind, called a primordial black hole, is the size of a single atom, but it contains the mass of a large mountain. The most widely understood black holes are known as stellar black holes and can contain 20 times the mass of the sun within a ball of space with a diameter of about 10 miles. Supermassive black holes can be as vast as the entire solar system and contain as much mass as found in 1 million suns combined.

Primordial black holes are believed to have formed during the early evolution of the universe, shortly after the Big Bang. Stellar black holes are thought to be the result of the collapse of a massive star. The formation of supermassive black holes has so far remained something of a mystery.
“We know supermassive black holes exist in the center of most big galaxies … but we actually don’t know how they’re formed,” says Dr. Seth. “We just know they formed a long time ago.”

Black holes are difficult to study because their tendency to pull light inside their centers renders them effectively invisible. 

Telescopes can observe contextual clues that suggest the presence of a black hole, such as stars orbiting around an apparent void.
“We can actually see stars moving around the center of the supermassive black hole of our galaxy,” Seth says. “It is much more difficult to study smaller galaxies.”

This particular dwarf galaxy happens to have so many stars – and a black hole that is so large – that telltale signs of the black hole were detected by two telescopes, the optical/infrared Gemini North telescope atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Typically, the size of a black hole is directly proportional to the size of the galaxy. Seth suspects that M60-UCD1 is actually the remains of a much larger galaxy.

“We think that this thing is a galaxy where the outer part of the galaxy has been stripped away by an interaction with another bigger galaxy and that the core has been left behind,” Seth explains.
In general, however, current technology has not yet reached a point that enables astronomers to definitively identify the presence of black holes in smaller galaxies.

By studying this and other black holes, scientists hope to unravel some of the mysteries of the origins of the universe.

“It turns out that black holes actually play a pretty big role in how galaxies form,” Seth says. “To understand our origin story we need to understand the formation of galaxies. And black holes, even though they are just a tiny fraction of all the mass in the galaxy, can play a really important role in their evolution."

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No sedative necessary: Scientists discover new ‘sleep node’ in the brain

September 19, 2014 / / 0 Comments



No sedative necessary: Scientists discover new 'sleep node' in the brain
Using designer genes, researchers at UB and Harvard were able to 'turn on' specific neurons in the brainstem that result in deep sleep.


medicalxpress.com

(Medical Xpress)—A sleep-promoting circuit located deep in the primitive brainstem has revealed how we fall into deep sleep. Discovered by researchers at Harvard School of Medicine and the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, this is only the second "sleep node" identified in the mammalian brain whose activity appears to be both necessary and sufficient to produce deep sleep.
Published online in August in Nature Neuroscience, the study demonstrates that fully half of all of the brain's sleep-promoting activity originates from the parafacial zone (PZ) in the brainstem. The brainstem is a primordial part of the brain that regulates basic functions necessary for survival, such as breathing, blood pressure, heart rate and body temperature.
"The close association of a sleep center with other regions that are critical for life highlights the evolutionary importance of sleep in the brain," says Caroline E. Bass, assistant professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and a co-author on the paper.
The researchers found that a specific type of neuron in the PZ that makes the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is responsible for deep sleep. They used a set of innovative tools to precisely control these neurons remotely, in essence giving them the ability to turn the neurons on and off at will.
"These new molecular approaches allow unprecedented control over brain function at the cellular level," says Christelle Ancelet, postdoctoral fellow at Harvard School of Medicine. "Before these tools were developed, we often used 'electrical stimulation' to activate a region, but the problem is that doing so stimulates everything the electrode touches and even surrounding areas it didn't. It was a sledgehammer approach, when what we needed was a scalpel."
"To get the precision required for these experiments, we introduced a virus into the PZ that expressed a 'designer' receptor on GABA neurons only but didn't otherwise alter brain function," explains Patrick Fuller, assistant professor at Harvard and senior author on the paper. "When we turned on the GABA neurons in the PZ, the animals quickly fell into a deep sleep without the use of sedatives or sleep aids."
How these neurons interact in the brain with other sleep and wake-promoting brain regions still need to be studied, the researchers say, but eventually these findings may translate into new medications for treating sleep disorders, including insomnia, and the development of better and safer anesthetics.
"We are at a truly transformative point in neuroscience," says Bass, "where the use of designer genes gives us unprecedented ability to control the brain. We can now answer fundamental questions of brain function, which have traditionally been beyond our reach, including the 'why' of sleep, one of the more enduring mysteries in the neurosciences."

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Early Earth less hellish than previously thought

September 16, 2014 / / 0 Comments


https://i0.wp.com/news.vanderbilt.edu/files/Dixoncoolearlyearthweb.jpg?resize=640%2C327
Artist's illustration of what a cool early Earth looked like. (Artwork by Don Dixon, cosmographica.com)

vanderbilt.edu

Conditions on Earth for the first 500 million years after it formed may have been surprisingly similar to the present day, complete with oceans, continents and active crustal plates.

This alternate view of Earth’s first geologic eon, called the Hadean, has gained substantial new support from the first detailed comparison of zircon crystals that formed more than 4 billion years ago with those formed contemporaneously in Iceland, which has been proposed as a possible geological analog for early Earth.

Calvin Miller standing on a hilly landscape
Professor Calvin Miller (Vanderbilt University)

The study was conducted by a team of geologists directed by Calvin Miller, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Vanderbilt University, and published online this weekend by the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters in a paper titled, “Iceland is not a magmatic analog for the Hadean: Evidence from the zircon record.”

From the early 20th century up through the 1980’s, geologists generally agreed that conditions during the Hadean period were utterly hostile to life. Inability to find rock formations from the period led them to conclude that early Earth was hellishly hot, either entirely molten or subject to such intense asteroid bombardment that any rocks that formed were rapidly remelted. As a result, they pictured the surface of the Earth as covered by a giant “magma ocean.”

This perception began to change about 30 years ago when geologists discovered zircon crystals (a mineral typically associated with granite) with ages exceeding 4 billion years old preserved in younger sandstones. These ancient zircons opened the door for exploration of the Earth’s earliest crust. In addition to the radiometric dating techniques that revealed the ages of these ancient zircons, geologists used other analytical techniques to extract information about the environment in which the crystals formed, including the temperature and whether water was present.
Since then zircon studies have revealed that the Hadean Earth was not the uniformly hellish place previously imagined, but during some periods possessed an established crust cool enough so that surface water could form – possibly on the scale of oceans.

Accepting that the early Earth had a solid crust and liquid water (at least at times), scientists have continued to debate the nature of that crust and the processes that were active at that time: How similar was the Hadean Earth to what we see today?

Panoramic photo of Miller standing on a hilltop
Calvin Miller at the Kerlingarfjoll volcano in central Iceland.  

Some geologists have proposed that the early Earth may have resembled regions like this. (Tamara Carley / Vanderbilt)
Two schools of thought have emerged: One argues that Hadean Earth was surprisingly similar to the present day. The other maintains that, although it was less hostile than formerly believed, early Earth was nonetheless a foreign-seeming and formidable place, similar to the hottest, most extreme, geologic environments of today. A popular analog is Iceland, where substantial amounts of crust are forming from basaltic magma that is much hotter than the magmas that built most of Earth’s current continental crust.

“We reasoned that the only concrete evidence for what the Hadean was like came from the only known survivors: zircon crystals – and yet no one had investigated Icelandic zircon to compare their telltale compositions to those that are more than 4 billion years old, or with zircon from other modern environments,” said Miller.

Tamara Carley kneeling by a stream
Tamara Carley panning for zircons on the bank of the Markarfljot River in south-central Iceland. (Abraham Padilla / Vanderbilt University)

In 2009, Vanderbilt doctoral student Tamara Carley, who has just accepted the position of assistant professor at Layfayette College, began collecting samples from volcanoes and sands derived from erosion of Icelandic volcanoes. She separated thousands of zircon crystals from the samples, which cover the island’s regional diversity and represent its 18 million year history.

Working with Miller and doctoral student Abraham Padilla at Vanderbilt, Joe Wooden at Stanford University, Axel Schmitt and Rita Economos from UCLA, Ilya Bindeman at the University of Oregon and Brennan Jordan at the University of South Dakota, Carley analyzed about 1,000 zircon crystals for their age and elemental and isotopic compositions. She then searched the literature for all comparable analyses of Hadean zircon and for representative analyses of zircon from other modern environments.

“We discovered that Icelandic zircons are quite distinctive from crystals formed in other locations on modern Earth. We also found that they formed in magmas that are remarkably different from those in which the Hadean zircons grew,” said Carley.

Tiny crystals on black background
Images of a collection of Icelandic zircons taken with a scanning electron microscope. They range in size from a tenth of a millimeter to a few thousands of a millimeter. (Tamara Carley / Vanderbilt)

Most importantly, their analysis found that Icelandic zircons grew from much hotter magmas than Hadean zircons. Although surface water played an important role in the generation of both Icelandic and Hadean crystals, in the Icelandic case the water was extremely hot when it interacted with the source rocks while the Hadean water-rock interactions were at significantly lower temperatures.
“Our conclusion is counterintuitive,” said Miller. “Hadean zircons grew from magmas rather similar to those formed in modern subduction zones, but apparently even ‘cooler’ and ‘wetter’ than those being produced today.”

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What Most People Do Not Know About Manifestation

September 16, 2014 / / 0 Comments

As the planet continues to raise her vibration toward a fifth dimensional frequency, the ability to manifest is becoming easier and faster. Ultimately those who are awakened to the possibility of a New Earth are working toward manifesting this into reality and need to know the missing piece of manifestation in order to be successful co-creators. The trinity of manifestation Manifestation involves using heartfelt intention, the Law of Attraction, and the Universal Law of Detachment. T [...]

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Allendale to Tots ~ An Update on David and Ben’s Work ~ January 30th, 2012

January 31, 2012 / / 0 Comments

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January 30th, 2012

Allendale

[Hi Al] Hi Tots, My, my you are a busy girl! [Never to busy for you, my friend.] That is lovely. Let me begin with an update of where we are with David and Ben’s w...

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James Kwok’s “Hidro+” Tech Floating to the Top

April 21, 2011 / / 0 Comments

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James Kwok's "Hidro+" commercially available technology allows for energy to be harvested from gravity induced pressure differentials in columns of water. "Ash" from Panacea-BOCAF recently visited Hidro+, witne...

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Project Blue Beam

March 13, 2011 / / 0 Comments

By Serge Monast
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/projectbluebeam25jul05.shtml
Originally Published 1994

[Note: Serge Monast [1945 – December 5, 1996] and another journalist, both of whom were researching Project Blue Beam, died of “heart attacks” within weeks of each other although neither had a history of heart disease. Serge was in Canada. The other Canadian journalist was visiting Ireland. Prior to his death, the Canadian government abducted Serge’s daughter in an attempt to dissuade him from pursuing his research into Project Blue Beam. His daughter was never returned. Pseudo-heart attacks are one of the alleged methods of death induced by Project Blue Beam.]

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Energy Update: Meredith’s Mashup

March 12, 2011 / / 0 Comments

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  a message from Meredith Murphy

Thursday, 10 March, 2011

Do you watch GLEE?  I do and I love it.  One of my favorite things they do on GLEE is a mashup.  It's taking two songs and mashing them togethe...

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