How to Extract DNA from Anything Living First, you need to find something that contains DNA. Since DNA is the blueprint for life, everything living contains DNA. For this experiment, we like to use green split peas. But there are lots of other DNA sources too, such as: Spinach Chicken liver Strawberries Broccoli Certain sources of DNA should not be used, such as: Your family pet, Fido the dog Your little sister's big toe Bugs you caught in the yard Step 1: Blender Insanity! Put in a blender: 1/2 cup of split peas (100ml) 1/8 teaspoon table salt (less than 1ml) 1 cup cold water (200ml) Blend on high for 15 seconds. The blender separates the pea cells from each other, so you now have a really thin pea-cell soup. Step 2: Soapy Peas Pour your thin pea-cell soup through a strainer into another container (like a measuring cup). Add 2 tablespoons liquid detergent (about 30ml) and swirl to mix. Let the mixture sit for 5-10 minutes. Pour the mixture into test tubes or other small glass containers, each about 1/3 full. Why am I adding detergent?
Venus to appear in once-in-a-lifetime event On 5 and 6 June this year, millions of people around the world will be able to see Venus pass across the face of the Sun in what will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It will take Venus about six hours to complete its transit, appearing as a small black dot on the Sun's surface, in an event that will not happen again until 2117. In this month's Physics World, Jay M Pasachoff, an astronomer at Williams College, Massachusetts, explores the science behind Venus's transit and gives an account of its fascinating history. Transits of Venus occur only on the very rare occasions when Venus and Earth are in a line with the Sun. At other times Venus passes below or above the Sun because the two orbits are at a slight angle to each other. Building on the original theories of Nicolaus Copernicus from 1543, scientists were able to predict and record the transits of both Mercury and Venus in the centuries that followed. For more information see Wikipedia article.
Rare Historical Photos Pt. 4 [18 Pics] Rare Historical Photos Pt. 4 [18 Pics] Oct 29 2012 Another roundup of the popular historical series of posts that we do. You can find the previous post here, and the start of the series here. Archduke Franz Ferdinand with his wife on the day they were assassinated by Gavrilo Princip. Bill (Clinton) & Hillary playing volleyball in Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA. 1975. 106-year old Armenian woman protecting her home with an AK-47. 1990. The first photo upon discovery of Machu Picchu, 1912. A tornado that hit Carswell AFB on Sept 1, 1952 caused massive damage to most of the B-36 fleet. Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein at the Bohr-Einstein debates over quantum mechanics. Boing 707 doing a barrel roll. Johnny Cash performing for prisoners at Folsom Prison. Horten H. Star Wars set at lunchtime. Howard Hughes inside of the H-4 Hercules, more widely known as the “Spruce Goose”. Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Times Square in New York, 1911. Steamboats in the Mississippi river, 1907. Release of Windows 95.
100 Very Cool Facts About The Human Body – Global One TV: A Blog for Mystics The Brain The human brain is the most complex and least understood part of the human anatomy. There may be a lot we don’t know, but here are a few interesting facts that we’ve got covered. Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour. Hair and Nails While they’re not a living part of your body, most people spend a good amount of time caring for their hair and nails. Facial hair grows faster than any other hair on the body. Internal Organs Though we may not give them much thought unless they’re bothering us, our internal organs are what allow us to go on eating, breathing and walking around. The largest internal organ is the small intestine. Bodily Functions We may not always like to talk about them, but everyone has to deal with bodily functions on a daily basis. Sneezes regularly exceed 100 mph. Sex and Reproduction As taboo as it may be in some places, sex is an important part of human life as a facet of relationships and the means to reproduce. Senses
Magic mushrooms’ effects illuminated in brain imaging studies Brain scans of people taking psilocybin have given scientists the most detailed picture to date of how psychedelic drugs work. Brain scans of people under the influence of the psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, have given scientists the most detailed picture to date of how psychedelic drugs work. The findings of two studies being published in scientific journals this week identify areas of the brain where activity is suppressed by psilocybin and suggest that it helps people to experience memories more vividly. In the first study, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 30 healthy volunteers had psilocybin infused into their blood while inside magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners, which measure changes in brain activity. The scans showed that activity decreased in "hub" regions of the brain - areas that are especially well-connected with other areas. R Carhart-Harris et al. R Carhart-Harris et al.
Symphony of Science Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived Additional notes from the author: If you want to learn more about Tesla, I highly recommend reading Tesla: Man Out of Time Also, this Badass of the week by Ben Thompson is what originally inspired me to write a comic about Tesla. Ben's also got a book out which is packed full of awesome. There's an old movie from the 80s on Netflix Instant Queue right now about Tesla: The Secret of Nikola Tesla. It's corny and full of bad acting, but it paints a fairly accurate depiction of his life. The drunk history of Tesla is quite awesome, too. History.com has a great article about Edison and how his douchebaggery had a chokehold on American cinema. sleepyti.me bedtime calculator Top 10 Ways Your Brain Is Sabotaging You (and How to Beat It) @Firesphere: Not that I don't believe you, but do you have a source for that? @inverts: I did, it was an article on a Dutch website. I'm searching for an English source. It was testet with CAT scans etcetera, the male brain showed indeed no activity when asked to "shut your eyes and calm down, think of as less as possible" Where the female brain kept being active. *Searches on* A funny side-fact on this: "Female" gays, seem to never be able to "shutdown" where as "male" lesbians were able to completely stop thinking. Sorry, I am unable to find the article I got this information from. If I find it again, I'll let it know offcourse. @Firesphere: The article suggests from that information, that those with a "masculine" mindset (for lack of a better term) can shut their brains down; "feminine" brains always have at least one task running then?
The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics - Press Release 4 October 2011 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2011 with one half to Saul Perlmutter The Supernova Cosmology Project Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA and the other half jointly to Brian P. and Adam G. "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae" Written in the stars "Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice..." * What will be the final destiny of the Universe? In 1998, cosmology was shaken at its foundations as two research teams presented their findings. The research teams raced to map the Universe by locating the most distant supernovae. The teams used a particular kind of supernova, called type Ia supernova. For almost a century, the Universe has been known to be expanding as a consequence of the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago. Saul Perlmutter, U.S. citizen. Brian P. Adam G. Recommended:
Brain Games & Brain Training Tree of Life Return to "Download Files" Page You are welcome to download the following graphic image of the Tree of Life for non-commercial, educational purposes: Tree of Life (~3,000 species, based on rRNA sequences) (pdf, 368 KB) (see Science, 2003, 300:1692-1697) This file can be printed as a wall poster. Tree of Life tattoo, courtesy of Clare D'Alberto, who is working on her Ph.D. in biology at the University of Melbourne. The organisms depicted in this tattoo are (starting at 4 o'clock and going around clockwise): (1) a cyanobacterium (Anabaena); (2) a radiolarian (Acantharea); (3) a dinoflagellate (Ceratium); (4) an angiosperm (Spider Orchid); (5) a couple species of fungi (Penicillium and a yeast); (6) a ctenophore (comb jelly); (7) a mollusc (nudibranch); (8) an echinoderm (brittle star); and (9) a vertebrate (Weedy Sea Dragon). Here is another great Tree of Life tattoo! Cover of Molecular Systmatics, 2nd ed Here is yet another version from Hannah Udelll at the University of Wisconson-Madisson.
The Lifehacker Tech Dictionary 32-bit vs. 64-bit. Chrome tells me that's why it can't run Java 7 and I don't know why. Bluetooth could be included and maybe how it differs from wireless (802.11). You included NAS, might as well include SAN and explain the difference. You mention Cloud Storage, what about Cloud Computing? MHz/GHz Bits, Bytes, and so on 32-bit, 64-bit Cache (Web, CPU, etc...) Ethernet 10/100 vs. 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) Cat 5, 5e, 6 Crossfire Northbridge Southbridge Web Hosting Compiler Runtime Java, .NET, Python, C#, VB .NET, ASP .NET, MVC, Ruby, Ruby on Rails (Other programming and scripting languages besides just PHP) Browser Exchange (You mention POP and IMAP, you should mention Exchange) Progressive Scan Interlaced Component Composite Hash (MD5 and SHA-1) Operating System Linux Windows Windows RT Bluetooth Latency DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+RW (And Blu-Ray too) This is the stuff I could just think of off the top of my head. Different kinds of cables/connectors?