The eye of God painted in deep space

Looks like an eye and not a very cheerful one but the photo is quite astonishing. The  blue pupil and the white of the eye are fringed by flesh-colored eyelids - but this so called eye is so big that if you were to travel with the speed of light you would need almost two and a half years to cross from one side to the other.

The eye is made from a shell of gas and dust that has been blown off by a faint central star. Our own solar system Read more

Artificial trees to harvest solar, wind and rain power

SolarBotanic is a company that specializes in an emerging tech dubbed biomimicry ( mimics the nature, and use nature-inspired methods to solve human problems).

The company is focusing mainly on energy production, and they have invented the Energy Harvesting Trees. The trees ( modeled on real ones) are composed of Nanoleafs, which use nanotechnology designed to capture the “sun’s energy in photovoltaic Read more

Dark Energy: Are we alone in this dark universe?

Somewhere in the not so distant future (but distant enough) astronomers will cast their eyes around the cosmos and they will come to the conclusion that our galaxy is alone in the universe.

Using the most sensitive detectors the future scientists will have a hard time or they won’t be able to observe the leftover radiation from the Big Bang explosion or to study the motion of distant galaxies to conclude that space is expanding or even see distant objects.In the future, Read more

Rats are trained to become mine detectors in Mozambique

It might sound cruel but in Mozambique, rats are trained to sniff out any unexploded mine, single out its location by pawing at the ground, and de-mine the field (splash damage !!!).

If you wanna try this at home, before you start the rat training, you’ll need to purchase the Giant Gambian rat variety - because of their weight, they can set off most mines that they find. Read more

Creepy doll made from living cells

What can some researchers do when they smoke too much or when they are getting bored? Invent things.
It’s the case of some researchers from the University of Tokyo who have created a 5 millimeter tall doll made entirely from living cells.

They started cultivating balls of skin cell covered collagen in doll shaped molds and  they combined into a single chunk of tissue. Read more

The radio controlled beetle

Some bug lovers (scientists actually) from the University of California managed to implant a chip in a giant flower beetle that makes it respond to some commands from the computer. The commands are to fly, stop, turn left and turn right.

The beetle is controlled through its optic nerves and wing muscles, Read more

Kid’s Science Project: Warning birds about deadly windows

Charlie Sobcov an eight grader from Canada fell in love with birds on a trip to Costa Rica four years ago and he found out that more than 500 million birds are killed by impact with windows annually in the US, Canada and Mexico.

And so, his quest began: stopping birds from dying in collisions with windows, but without ruin anybody’s view. After  some research he found out that birds can see the ultraviolet light (invisible for the human eye). Then he invented the painted, plastic decals that can be placed — discreetly — right in the middle of a window pane: Read more

Antarctica’s 15-Million Year-Old Lake

Deep under the frozen ice of the Antarctica lies the ancient Vostok lake estimated to be a million years old or more.

The scientists are breaking the ice as we speak, using  novel genomic techniques to determine how tiny, living “time capsules” survived the ages in total darkness, in freezing cold, and without food and energy from the sun. Located beneath four kilometers of ice in East Antarctica, the lake is approximately 250 km long, 50 km wide and the overlying ice provides a continuous paleo-climatic record of 400,000 years, although the lake water itself may have been isolated for as long as 15 million years.

It is believed that Lake Vostok could contain new lifeforms, and unique geochemical processes and because of that agencies like NASA have a large interest in exploring the lake to search for microbes that might be similar to ones on other planets. The exploration will not be an easy thing  because of its millions of years of isolation from the rest of the world, the lake cannot be explored without introduction of microbes from the outer world. Also NASA thinks that the lake could be an analog to Jupiter’s moon Europa or subsurface where conditions are similar.

This lake may have been isolated for that long - 15 million years,” said Lanoil, the principal investigator of the research project. “After nearly a year of preparation and verifying protocols, we are now ready to process the samples, and will examine the DNA of these microorganisms to understand how they survived in such an extreme environment.”

via: dailygalaxy.com

Repair human bones with the help of…worm glue

Most of us (or some) are aware of the existence of this “worm glue” but under the hidden name of ninja rope. Yes I’m talking about Worms Armageddon, but now let’s get back to the science facts.

Some guys working at the University of Utah have created a synthetic sea worm glue extracted from another type of glue used by the sandcastle worms to build homes from bits of sand and shell. The outcome has the great potential to repair certain shattered bones.
Russell Stewart (associate professor of bioengineering) Read more

Build your own software synth: Auduino

If you like building your own synthesizers or any sound producing gizmo you might want to check this out. On tinker.it you’ll find some nice plans for building a software synthesizer using an Arduino. Read more

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