Papilio Butterfly wallpaper

Papilio Butterfly wallpaper. Their common name is “Scarlet Mormon”

 

Study: Seals sleep with half their brain

“Seals do something biologically amazing — they sleep with half their brain at a time,” Toronto researcher John Peever said in a university release Tuesday. “The left side of their brain can sleep while the right side stays awake.

“Seals sleep this way while they’re in water, but they sleep like humans while on land. Our research may explain how this unique biological phenomenon happens,” he said.

Thew neurotransmitter acetylcholine was found to be high on the awake side and low on the sleep side.

What do TV screens, bullet-proof vests and soap all have common? They all work because of liquid crystallinity, a structure in which molecules are aligned without being packed regularly.

Locked and Loaded, How Second Amendment mythologies—and the market—have taken over the gun-violence debate. It seems to a large extent we cannot have a public debate about guns because as soon as someone mentioned gun safety regulation, the very first rejoinder will be the accusation that the person proposing some mild regulation actually wants to ban all guns. That is what is called hysteria. Assault weapons like the Bushmaster .223 semiautomatic rifle were banned for new sales for over a decade and the nation managed not to descend into tyranny.

Frosty Green leaf wallpaper, Mercury’s Silent Toll, Maintenance free touch screens

Frosty Green Leaf wallpaper

 

Mercury is one nasty chemical, Mercury’s Silent Toll

Scientists are only beginning to understand the impacts of mercury contamination on birds, fish, and other wildlife populations. But what they are finding is alarming — even low levels can cause harm, and chronic exposure has unexpected and troubling effects.

This month, delegates from over 140 countries gathered in Geneva and finalized the first international treaty to reduce emissions of mercury. The treaty — four years in the works and scheduled for signing in October — aims to protect human health from this very serious neurotoxin.

But barely considered during the long deliberations, according to those involved in the treaty process, was the harm that mercury inflicts on wildlife. While mercury doesn’t kill many animals outright, it can put a deep dent in reproduction, says David Evers, chief scientist at the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), who serves on a scientific committee informing the process. “It is a bit of a silent threat, where you have to kind of add up what was lost through studies and demographic models.”

Harmful levels of mercury have turned up in all sorts of animals, from fish and birds living around the world to pythons invading the Florida Everglades and polar bears roaming far from any sources of pollution. In recent years, biologists have been tracking mercury’s footprints in unexpected habitats and species. Their research is illuminating the subtle effects of chronic exposure and is showing that ever-lower levels cause harm.

Coal burning, gold mining, and other human activities release mercury into water bodies or the atmosphere, where it can travel great distances before settling back to Earth. Mercury contamination is ubiquitous and hotspots are common around the world, with fish and human hair collected in 14 countries regularly exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards, according to a BRI report released just before the Geneva negotiations. And while mercury emissions are declining in North America and Europe they are rising quickly in the developing world, according to the United Nations Environment

Exposed animals have trouble ridding their bodies of mercury and it accumulates in tissue. In the body mercury has detrimental effects on vertebrates’ development and their neurological and hormonal systems. At least on the part of the U.S. there was a positive step in banning the export of elemental mercury.

One of those tech or advances in materials science that consumers will belive when they have it in their hands and it actually works, Toray Showcases Self-repairing, Fingerprint-proof Film

Toray Industries Inc exhibited a film that self-repairs small scratches and makes fingerprints less visible and easy to be cleaned off at nano tech 2013, which runs from Jan 30 to Feb 1, 2013, in Tokyo.

The film is targeted at devices equipped with touch-sensitive screens such as smartphones and tablet computers. It was made by applying an anti-fingerprint technology to a self-repairing film that is currently sold by Toray.

There is probably more research regarding fingerprint proof screens and either self repairing and more scratch resistant than just these develpments from Toray. Since everything from smart-phones to tablets to laptops are all coming with touch reactive screens. Even clean hands are constantly emitting oils – which are technically chemical compounds called esters

I saw a female Painted bunting last week. They’re kind of rare around here. Not last summer but two years ago one came to the bird feeder pretty regularly. One would think that since there is one, maybe more females around I would see a male eventually, but I have not see a male in fifteen years.

Female Painted bunting. Courtesy Dan Pancamo and Creative Commons.

Animalia
Phylum:     Chordata
Class:     Aves
Order:     Passeriformes
Family:     Cardinalidae
Genus:     Passerina
Species:     P. ciris

Supersized Wind Turbines Head Out to Sea

Several companies are designing 10- and even 15-megawatt machines with 100-meter blades. These blades would reach two-thirds of the way to the roof of the Empire State Building. The push to supersize wind turbines is part of an effort to reduce installation and maintenance costs, which can be far higher than the cost of the turbines themselves.

Setting aside my concerns about the effects on marine life and sea birds the technology behind the turbines and the ship to install them is astounding. Pictured at the link is a ship especially made for installing these new super-sized turbines. It is capable of elevating itself on stilts – they’re the tall black tubes on the side that look like smoke stacks.

University of East Anglia scientists mimic nature in £800,000 renewable energy project

University of East Anglia scientists mimic nature in £800,000 renewable energy project

“Light absorption by the green chlorophyll pigments generates an energised electron that is directed, along chains of metal centres, to catalysts that make sugars.

“We will build a system for artificial photosynthesis by placing tiny solar-panels on microbes. These will harness sunlight and drive the production of hydrogen, from which the technologies to release energy on demand are well-advanced.

“We imagine that our photocatalysts will prove versatile and that with slight modification they will be able to harness solar energy for the manufacture of carbon-based fuels, drugs and fine chemicals.”

Using natural plant processes rather than rare metals would definitely be cheaper, if they can manage to design the tiny solar-panels on microbes on a mass scale.

The revolutionary e-bike “nCycle”

The nCycle seems to be in the concept phase, but the amount of work they have put into the design and the working prototype would seem to suggest that it is on the way to market.

 

Breakthrough identifies molecular switch enabling immune cells to better fight disease

Most of the time, the immune system is the body’s protector, warding off invading viruses and bacteria before they can lead to infection and disease. But in autoimmune diseases, the immune system does an about face, turning on the body and attacking normal cells.

A major discovery by La Jolla Institute scientist Amnon Altman, Ph.D., and his colleagues, of a previously unknown molecular interaction that is essential for T lymphocyte activation, could have major implications for stopping this aberrant immune system behavior and the accompanying undesirable immune responses that cause autoimmune diseases and allergies

Dr. Kronenberg of the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology, said the discovery opens the door to the potential development of new therapies for multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and a host of other autoimmune diseases.

This cat seems to think snow is a nefarious plot to hide something and whatever it is he or she is determined to find it. Sorry about the ad, YouTube seems to be adding them to most videos:

Koala and joey, Robofish Grace glides with the greatest of ease, A great satellite picture via the Earth Observation Research Center and their ALOS

Koala

The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is not a mammal, but an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. Did you know that the koala’s five fingers include two opposable thumbs, providing better gripping ability.

Kingdom:     Animalia
Phylum:     Chordata
Class:     Mammalia
Infraclass:     Marsupialia
Order:     Diprotodontia
Family:     Phascolarctidae
Genus:     Phascolarctos
Species:     P. cinereus

 

*While not a perfect solution, I still have to insert graphics on the WordPress interface, I found a free blog editor that works with WordPress called w.Blogger. Editing text is much much less aggravating.

 

 

Robofish Grace glides with the greatest of ease

A high-tech robotic fish hatched at Michigan State University has a new look. A new skill. And a new name.

MSU scientists have made a number of improvements on the fish, including the ability to glide long distances, which is the most important change to date. The fish now has the ability to glide through the water practically indefinitely, using little to no energy, while gathering valuable data that can aid in the cleaning of our lakes and rivers.

Designed and built by Xiaobo Tan, MSU associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and his team, the fish is equipped with an array of sensors that not only allow it to travel autonomously, but also measure water temperature, quality and other pertinent facts.

“Swimming requires constant flapping of the tail,” Tan said, “which means the battery is constantly being discharged and typically wouldn’t last more than a few hours.”

The disadvantage to gliding, he said, is that it is slower and less maneuverable.

“This is why we integrated both locomotion modes – gliding and swimming – in our robot,” Tan said. “Such integration also allows the robot to adapt to different environments, from shallow streams to deep lakes, from calm ponds to rivers, with rapid currents.”

The robotic fish even has a new name: Grace, which stands for “Gliding Robot ACE. In a previous test run own the Kalamazoo River Grace proved amazingly good at gathering data, and without any glitches.

Social antics in ants inherited like sex chromosomes

Fire ants are a family divided. When setting up a new colony, young queens go one of two ways. Some strike out on their own and remain independent, stockpiling fat reserves and creating workers that kill rival queens. But others prefer the communal life, joining colonies in which multiple queens reign side by side.

Laurent Keller at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and colleagues have now identified the genes behind this ant’s split personality – and they turn out to share many of the properties of sex chromosomes.

Reserchers report that tis appears to be the first time that such a “supergene” for social behaviour has been described. Also good to knwo that my old text books are not completely outdated. Much like the basic recessive/dominant tables that are studied in general genetics classes the two chromosome regions, social B (SB) and social b (Sb) determine the two types of behaviour seen in the ants. Each is made up of several hundred genes and inherited as SB/SB or SB/Sb pairs.

While they give a lot of helpful details, this is also a creative travelogue. So even none hikers might enjoy just as a long story. Easy Epics: 17 Drive-up Campsites a Backpacker Will Love

The image below is from Earth Observation Research Center and their ALOS or advance Land Observing Satellite. The front page has links to their image gallery and examples of recently posted images. I picked the one of Pakistan just because it stood out for the colors, but all the images range from interesting to beautiful, and useful if you’re really into weather, geography or geology.

Observation of concentrated heavy rain in Pakistan by AVNIR-2 onboard “Daichi” (ALOS) (5) Enlarged images of the swollen rivers at Hyderabad Northwestern Pakistan in the central Asia has been seriously damaged due to floods and mudslides caused by heavy rain which had occurred continuously since July 29, 2010.

Larger: Observation of concentrated heavy rain in Pakistan by AVNIR-2 onboard “Daichi” (ALOS) (5)

Lions Cubs on Look-Out wallpaper, Roboy robot likely to make debut in 2013

Lions Cubs on Look-Out wallpaper

Roboy robot likely to make debut in 2013

Roboy is a robot with a future. He represents a new generation of robots and an innovative research direction for science and industry. This pioneering project began a good five months ago at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the University of Zurich, and its goal is to develop one of the most advanced humanoid robots within the record-breaking timeframe of only nine months. Today “Roboy” is getting a new face and can already move his arms – and soon he will be presented to the public to celebrate the laboratory’s 25th anniversary at the robotics fair “Robots on Tour”.

Service robots are machines that are, to a certain extent, able to execute services independently for the convenience of human beings. Since they share their “living space” with people, user- friendliness and safety, above all, are of great importance. This is why so-called “soft robotics” – the development of robots that are soft to the touch, soft in their interaction, soft and natural in their movements – will play an ever greater role in this field.

“Roboy” – a “soft robot” – is a more advanced version of his famous brother “Ecce”. Thanks to his construction as a tendon-driven robot modelled on human beings (“normal” robots have their motors in their joints), Roboy moves almost as elegantly as a human. What’s more, at a later point in the project Roboy will be covered with “soft skin”, so that interacting with him becomes safer and more pleasant. Service robots are already used in a wide variety of areas today, including for household chores, surveillance work and cleaning, but also in hospitals and care homes. Our aging population is making it necessary to keep older people as autonomous as possible for as long as possible, which means caring for aged people is likely to be an important area for the deployment of service robots. We can very safely assume that service robots will become part of our environment in the future, as is already the case today for technologies such as smartphones, laptops, etc.

Roboy artist rendering by the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the University of Zurich

That Roboy will have some degree of artificial intelligence is always news since the more human-like a robot can be the more humans interact with them and have feelings about them. Though it is the use of artificial tendons and the soft technology that will make Roboy unique in the evolution of robots.

Sunset Magazine’s Top green home designs in the West. Sustainable materials and eco-friendly design principles reign at these exemplary low-impact homes. As innovative, attractive and cost efficient as these homes are I wish we would see more on new apartment buildings, and renovating older homes and multi-tenant buildings.

This is just a site I ran across – Sun Toys. A little late for the holidays, but the toys run on solar and artificial light ( though not fluorescent) are still educational and look like they would be fun to play with.

Solar Educational Vehicle Toy Kit by Dulany Solar LLC

 

That mystery picture from Friday was a hawksmoth caterpillar. They use mimicry – of a small snake in this case – to discourage attack by predators. Hawkmoth  belong to the family Sphingidae, which also includes sphinx moths and hornworms, that includes about 1,450 species. It is best represented in the tropics but there are species in every region.

Adult hawkmoth. Creative Commons license.

Italian neurologist and Nobel laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini dies at 103

Miss Levi-Montalcini lived through anti-semitic discrimination under fascism to become one of Italy’s top scientists and most respected figures.

She won acclaim for her work on cells, which furthered understanding of a range of conditions, including cancer.