The bacteria that turns water into ice Meet Pseudomonas syringae, a bacterium that causes disease in plants and helps make snow machines work. It all has to do with ice nucleation — the process that forms ice crystals in the atmosphere and, thus, snow. You probably know that raindrops and snowflakes form around something. There's always a central nucleus that serves as the backbone of the water molecule structure. Usually, when people talk about this process, they use soot or some other kind of particulate matter as the example of what a nucleus can be. Here's how biologist Mark Martin described the process in the video: In my Microbiology course at the University of Puget Sound, I like to demonstrate the wild and wonderful and weird microbial world. P. syringae gets this skill from the proteins that cover its surface membrane. Commercial snow machines use the proteins (though not the bacteria itself) to help instigate the creation of snow on ski mountains. Why would bacteria develop this particular ability?
Official Center of the World, Felicity, California Felicity, California Time to recalibrate yourself. Drive just west of the border between Arizona and southern California, and stop in the Sonoran Desert -- one of the hottest and driest places in the U.S. Step inside the pyramid. Stand on the metal disk. The Center of the World disk. Jacques-Andre Istel has officially established the Center of the World here, and he has built a town around it to bolster his claim (The Center of the World is also said to be elsewhere, making it easier for those who wish to be centered). Mayor Istel is a gracious, well-mannered man with a vision. Jacques-Andre saw this barren wasteland while serving as a Marine in the Korean War. Mayor greets visitors. First, Jacques-Andre wrote a children's book which helped convince Imperial County, California, to legally recognize a spot on his property as the official Center of the World (it is also recognized as such by the Institut Geographique National of France). The Mayor needed a way to mark his Center.
College - Experience it Firsthand In September 2013, Berry’s original bald eagle couple was once again seen on the Berry College campus in the vicinity of the nest in a tall pine tree situated between the main entrance and the parking lot of the Steven J. Cage Athletic and Recreation Center. The couple spent several months repairing and adding to the nest and catching fish and coots in the nearby Berry quarry, Oostanaula River and Garden Lakes in Rome. During the summer, college staff relocated the "approach" video camera to a pole closer to the nest and, with the help of a Georgia Power crew, mounted a "nest cam" in a branch near the eagles’ nest. Berry College’s original bald eagle parents began making the nest in March 2012, an unusual time for nest-building in the life-cycle of eagles. Eagles have been reported in the vicinity of the campus for the past two to three years, but this is the first documented nest in the modern history of Floyd County, according to an article in the Rome News-Tribune.
Free Energy Systems "Q: Then electricity is, in essence, a flow of electrons?A: Yes. Q: You say they are tapped. Where are they tapped from? What is the source of these free electrons? Q: The electrons of the conductor itself are being passed along, and this is the manifestation of the flow of electricity? Q: In what sense am I not correct? Q: Electrical energy will be present in everything. Q: Okay. Q: What qualities does the superconductor have that contributes to this accelerating of flow? Q: What creates a cycling magnetic pulse? Q: How do you create a gravity vacuum? Q: You said that a superconductor separates the electrons, thus exciting the flow. Q: How is that different from a normal electric flow? Q: Is this separation of electrons a key to this process? Q: What additional conditions or qualities contribute to the separating of electrons? Q: (L) What defines a superconductor? Q: So, there is no actual possibility for a true superconductor with absolutely zero resistance? Q: Well it is VERY cold...
Shepard tone Spectrum view of ascending Shepard tones (linear frequency scale) Construction[edit] Figure 1: Shepard tones forming a Shepard scale, illustrated in a sequencer Each square in the figure indicates a tone, any set of squares in vertical alignment together making one Shepard tone. The acoustical illusion can be constructed by creating a series of overlapping ascending or descending scales. The scale as described, with discrete steps between each tone, is known as the discrete Shepard scale. Jean-Claude Risset subsequently created a version of the scale where the tones glide continuously, and it is appropriately called the continuous Risset scale or Shepard–Risset glissando. The tritone paradox[edit] Examples[edit] See also[edit] References[edit] External links[edit]
Can a $70 Light Bulb Change Your Life?: Video Gamme de Shepard Un article de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre. où 16 < f < 32 De la sorte, la note de Shepard correspondant à la fréquence fondamentale f dans l'octave -1 confond toutes les notes de même nom dans toutes les octaves. Exemple d'un son de Shepard : Son de Shepard pour la note la. Le la-1 correspond à la fréquence 27,5 hertz. Le son de Shepard correspondant est la somme à égalité de toutes les sinusoïdes correspondant à la fréquence fondamentale de tous les la audibles, 27,5, 55, 110, 220, 440, 880, 1760, 3520, 7040 et 14 080 Hz. Gamme de Shepard, diatonique en Do majeur, repétée 5 fois. Quand la fondamentale parcourt en boucle en descendant ou en montant toutes les valeurs de l'octave -1, cela crée l'illusion auditive d'une gamme qui descend (ou monte) indéfiniment. Importance des sons et gamme de Shepard[modifier | modifier le code] La gamme de Shepard, en tant que perception paradoxale, peut se comparer à l'objet impossible appelé escalier de Penrose, pour la perspective[2]. ↑ (en) Roger N.
A Bird Flies South, and It’s News Photo DUXBURY, Mass. — The snowy owl seemed almost complacent, showing the confidence of a top predator whose bright yellow eyes suggested she might be sizing you up as a weaker combatant — or perhaps a large snack. She had been where no bird should safely be — Logan International Airport in Boston — and now, regal and imposing in brief captivity, she represented the latest of her kind to arrive in a remarkable and growing winter’s wandering to the Lower 48. Not only is the Boston area seeing the largest number of snowy owls ever recorded, they are popping up in territory far from their usual habitat near the Arctic Circle. Ecstatic bird watchers have spotted them perched atop the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and in Washington (where one made headlines for being struck by a bus), in Little Rock, Ark., and northern Florida — even in Bermuda. “This year’s been bizarre,” said Dan Haas, a birder in Maryland. Sighting one, especially in an unexpected place, can be thrilling for birders. Ms. Mr.
Genes, Macromolecules, -&- Computing: Strange loops in biology Strange loops is a term introduced by Douglas Hofstadter in his seminal book, G"odel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Simply put, it refers to self-referential (recursive) constructs. For a more detailed explanation, read the book; hopefully the examples below will illustrate my thinking on strange loops. This is in progress. GEB ... likens inanimate molecules to meaningless symbol, and further likens selves (or "I"'s or "souls", if you prefer---whatever it is that distinugishes animate matter from inanimate matter) to certain special swirly, twisty, vortex-like, and meaningful patterns that arise only in particular types of systems of meaningless symbols. It is these strange, twisty patterns that the book spends so much time on, because they are little known, little appreciated, counterintiutive, and quite filled with mystery. The greatest strange loop in biology is the one where DNA is used to make proteins which in turn is used to make more DNA.
Brain During An Out Of Body Experience Nuclear fusion hits energy milestone - Technology & Science For the first time, fuel for a nuclear fusion reaction has generated more energy than put into it – a scientific milestone. Scientists and futurists have long dreamed of harnessing the energy of nuclear fusion, which powers the sun, here on Earth. An enormous amount of energy is released when multiple atoms collide and fuse to form a new, heavier atom — such as hydrogen fusing into helium. Hydrogen fuel is plentiful in sources such as seawater and the fusion process generates no radioactive waste, greenhouse gases or other dangerous byproducts. However, for decades, scientists have been unsuccessful in generating the conditions for making fusion happen on Earth in a controlled manner that would allow it to be used in power plants. Deuterium and tritium were coated inside the capsule at the centre of this photo, inside a cylindrical container. "That's a major turning point in our minds," said Omar Hurricane, lead author of a paper describing the results, published in Nature today.
How to Make Anything Disappear Back in 2006 Harry Potter was all the rage in the engineering world. That year a team at Duke University built the first rudimentary device for hiding objects, akin to the boy wizard’s invisibility cloak. But in technology as in the movies, Harry Potter is now old news. Over the past six years, scientists have moved beyond mere invisibility: If they could build cloaks for light waves, then why not design materials to conceal sound and even ocean waves? A whole suite of invisibility cloaks are now under development, all building on the same basic principle as the first prototype. When we perceive an object, we are actually detecting the disturbances it creates as energy waves bounce off it. The Tech: A group of physicists led by Tolga Ergin and Joachim Fischer at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany built a light-bending fabric last year that—for the first time—rendered a cloaked object invisible to the human eye from any viewing angle.
How Science Turned a Struggling Pro Skier Into an Olympic Medal Contender - Wired Science Saslong.org/R.Perathoner Steven Nyman is poised at the starting gate, alert, coiled, ready. A signal sounds: three even tones followed by a single, more urgent pitch, sending Nyman kicking onto the Val Gardena downhill ski course. He pushes five times with his poles, accelerating as quickly as possible, stabbing the snow frantically. He skates forward with abbreviated strokes, neon green boots moving up and down, his focus on building as much momentum as possible. Nyman is feeling good. In the world of downhill racing, Nyman, 30, is a grizzled journeyman, a fixture on the World Cup circuit who for most of his 11-year professional career has been stuck solidly in the middle of the pack. Until now. In the wake of a season-ending Achilles tear in 2011, Nyman embarked on a new training regimen. Hours in a Wind TunnelAround four seconds into the run, Nyman goes into his tuck—knees bent at 90-degree angles, back parallel to the ground, hands forward, head up. It was forged in a wind tunnel.