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50 Years of Protein Structure Determination

50 Years of Protein Structure Determination

Giant Cosmic Space Clouds of Beer Every now and then you hear something which grabs your attention. This captured my attention: There is a cloud of alcohol (ethyl alcohol – the happy juice found in beer, wine, and spirits) floating in space. This isn’t a small cloud either. That’s the good news. Imagine a whole space cloud filled with beer. The bad news is it is 10,000 light years away in the constellation of Aquila. Space alcohol was discovered back in 1975 by Dr. Scientists theorize simpler compounds collect on bits of dust. In the center of the cloud is a young and very drunk star (not Paris Hilton). I am a avid homebrewer and winemaker. © 2009 – 2012, fermentarium. Please see the fair use guidelines for republication.

NOVA Can Wind Turbines Make You Sick? Residents living in the shadows of wind turbines say the sound is making them sick. But so far the science isn't there. From NOVA Next | Jun 27, 2018 Thirty Years Ago Today, Global Warming First Made Headline News On June 23, a NASA climate scientist, James Hansen, told a U.S. From NOVA Next | Jun 23, 2018 New Middle Eastern Particle Accelerator’s Motto is “Science for Peace” In a region in turmoil, an unprecedented joint venture of scientists and policymakers is working together on Jordan’s new particle accelerator under the motto "science for peace." From NOVA Next | Jun 21, 2018 Psychological Damage Inflicted By Parent-Child Separation is Deep, Long-Lasting Here's what happens in the brain and the body when a child is forcibly separated from his or her parents.

Gubs Charles Wenzel August 5, 2005 Gubs are those round, black spots you see on the pavement and sidewalks outside most public establishments, especially gas stations and restaurants. You may have seen thousands of them but never realized what they are or even noticed them. Birth of a Gub Although every stretch of pavement or concrete has gubs and the total number of gubs must be in the high millions, it is surprisingly difficult to catch one being created. Gub Statistics At a typical location gubs are usually concentrated a few feet from a door or stopping place, dropping off in an exponential fashion at greater distances. Gub Life Cycle The gub's life cycle has not been studied in any great detail and most knowledge is inferred. Gub Evolution Gub evolution is primarily effected by changes in the formulation of gums. The Future of the Gub Gubs are probably here to stay. Additional Photos Typical Gub Field Rare Tree Gubs with Equally Rare Tree Butts

THC Prevents MDMA Neurotoxicity in Mice - PubMed Mobile Butterfly wings feel the heat › News in Science (ABC Science) News in Science Monday, 13 February 2012 Stuart GaryABC Lepidoptric imaging Scientists are using a five million year old design to make a better infrared detector. Dr Radislav Potyrailo and colleagues at General Electric in the United States are copying the microscopic structures found on the scales of butterfly wings to develop new technology with medical, industrial and military applications. Reporting in the journal Nature Photonics, Potyrailo and colleagues examined the iridescent colours produced by the wings of the tropical Morpho sulkowskyi butterfly, found in Columbia, Ecuador and Peru. The morpho genus of butterflies first appeared five million years ago. "The complex geometry of these 125 nanometre sized tree-shaped structures causes light to bounce around resulting in multi-layer interference patterns," Potyrailo says. "The infrared radiation causes the nanostructures to heat up and expand and to a lesser degree change its refractive index," says Potyrailo. A better detector

Primates as prey, predators, competitors of snakes Photo by J. Headland/Courtesy of PNAS Reticulated python shot by Kekek Aduanan, the adult male Agta on the right, on June 9, 1970, at the headwaters of the Koso River in the Sierra Madre of Aurora Province, Luzon, Philippines. Note the snake's girth and head size relative to the size of the men holding her carcass. More than a quarter of the men in a modern Filipino hunter-gatherer group have been attacked by giant pythons, reports a study that also concludes that humans and snakes not only eat and are eaten by each other, but have long been competitors for the same prey. Skin of the same python as above after the two hunters and Headland butchered it, thereby providing about 55 pounds of meat to the men's families and fellow group members. Human aversion to snakes may be a result of a shared evolutionary history, researchers have often speculated, but since snakes swallow their prey whole, little fossil evidence remains to help define the relationship between snakes and primates.

Your Brain On Psilocybin Might Be Less Depressed : Shots - Health Blog hide captionThis could be your forest on psilocybin. Baxterclaus/Flickr This could be your forest on psilocybin. Magic mushrooms are said to blow your mind, but the hallucinogenic chemical psilocybin, the active ingredient, actually reins in key parts of the brain, according to two new studies. The memorably vivid emotional experiences reported by mushroom users may flourish because the parts of the brain suppressed by psilocybin usually keep our world view tidy and rational. And since the brain area affected by psilocybin can also be out of whack in mental health problems such as depression, the researchers speculate that the drug may turn out to be useful in treating mental illness. "The brain's doing a lot to keep our experiences of the world orderly and constrained," says Robin Carhart-Harris, a post-doc in neuroscience at Imperial College London, and lead author of the studies. The studies are among the first to use brain imaging to take a peek at the brain on psilocybin.

Animal Sleep Most animals have a daily pattern of rest and activity. Some animals are more active during the day (diurnal) and some are more active during the night (nocturnal). How much time do animals spend sleeping? References: This table was adapted from four sources: Aserinsky, E., Eyelid condition at birth: relationship to adult mammalian sleep-waking patterns, In Rapid Eye Movement Sleep, edited by B.N.

Fish mimics octopus that mimics fish Nature's game of intimidation and imitation comes full circle in the waters of Indonesia, where scientists have recorded for the first time an association between the black-marble jawfish (Stalix cf. histrio) and the mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus). Undescribed by scientists until 1998, the talented mimic octopus is known to impersonate toxic flatfish, lionfish, and even sea snakes by creatively configuring its limbs, adopting characteristic undulating movements, and displaying bold brown-and-white color patterns. Thanks to these brazen habits, it can swim in the open with relatively little fear of predators. The jawfish, on the other hand, is a small and timid fish. It spends most of its adult life close to a sand burrow, where it will quickly retreat upon sighting a predator. During a diving trip in Indonesia in July 2011, Godehard Kopp of the University of Gottingen, Germany, filmed an unexpected pairing between the two animals.

Glow-in-the-dark mushroom rediscovered after 170 years It's something you would never expect to go missing, but one of the world's brightest glow-in-the-dark mushrooms has been rediscovered after an absence of more than 170 years, according to USA Today. The bioluminescent shrooms had become a Brazilian legend of sorts. They were first spied in 1840 by an English botanist named George Gardner, who was alarmed after he saw some boys playing with a glowing object in the streets of Vila de Natividad, a village in the Goiás state in central Brazil. After that, no more sightings of the brightly glowing fungus had ever been reported. The mushroom was nearly forgotten until 2002, when Brazilian chemist Cassius Stevani came across Gardner's early reports. Izar and Fragaszy scooped up specimens and contacted Stevani, who later confirmed that the mushrooms were indeed Gardner's long lost species. Ironically, right after the rediscovery of the mushrooms, scientists came to learn that local people were quite familiar with them.

Faster-than-light neutrinos could be proof of extra dimensions Similarly, how can I get my ice cream scoops to jump between flavours and manipulate them? Because my wife is always buying Chocolate, but I prefer Strawberry and would like it to be in the shape of a bunny rabbit. Three main issues I see with that. First, neutrinos fluctuate seemingly at random. Second, the only way we know of to create neutrinos is through nuclear fusion, very high energy particle collisions (such as those caused by cosmic rays or in a particle accelerator), or radioactive decay. Finally, detecting neutrinos is very difficult. On a planetary scale fiber optics work fine. There are times I wish I were a physicist. I am no expert but that doesn't sound right.

Alcubierre Warp Drive Time Travel An Alcubierre Warp Drive stretches spacetime in a wave causing the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft to contract and the space behind it to expand. The ship can ride the wave to accelerate to high speeds and time travel. The Alcubierre drive, also known as the Alcubierre metric or Warp Drive, is a mathematical model of a spacetime exhibiting features reminiscent of the fictional "warp drive" from Star Trek, which can travel "faster than light" (although not in a local sense - see below). The key characteristics of the application of Alcubierre warp drives for time control and time travel are presented in the picture below. Alcubierre Warp Drive Description In 1994, the Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed a method of stretching space in a wave which would in theory cause the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft to contract and the space behind it to expand. Alcubierre Metric The Alcubierre Metric defines the so-called warp drive spacetime. Mathematics of the Alcubierre drive

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