Friday, September 26, 2014
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Fwd: Water vapor exoplanet
'Astronomers have detected water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet that orbits a star far beyond our solar system.
Observations of the Neptune-sized planet, which lies 120 light years from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus, revealed that its atmosphere was mostly hydrogen with around 25% made up from water vapour.
Until now, researchers have been frustrated in their efforts to study the atmospheres of planets much smaller than Jupiter because their skies were thick with clouds. The problem was so persistent that astronomers had begun to think that all warm, small planets formed with substantial cloud cover.
But writing in the journal Nature, scientists in the US describe how they found a Neptune-sized planet with cloud-free skies, enabling them to make detailed measurements of a small planet's atmosphere for the first time.
The planet, named HAT-P-11b, is about four times the diameter of Earth. It orbits so close to its star that surface temperatures reach more than 600C and a year passes in five Earth days. Like our own Neptune, the planet lacks a rocky surface – it's a ball of gas – and is thought to be lifeless'
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/24/water-small-warm-planet-atmosphere
Monday, September 22, 2014
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Friday, August 29, 2014
This is too good not to share.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Fwd: Diabetes
'Researchers have developed a way to use a laser to measure people's blood sugar, and, with more work to shrink the laser system to a portable size, the technique could allow diabetics to check their condition without pricking themselves to draw blood. In a new article, the researchers describe how they measured blood sugar by directing their specialized laser at a person's palm.'
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140821141610.htm
... We live in interesting times.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Fwd: IBM brain-like processor
Big Blue released a research paper describing the latest fruits of
these labors. With this paper, published in the academic journal
Science, the company unveils what it calls TrueNorth, a custom-made
"brain-like" chip that builds on a simpler experimental system the
company released in 2011.
TrueNorth comes packed with 4,096 processor cores, and it mimics one
million human neurons and 256 million synapses, two of the fundamental
biological building blocks that make up the human brain. IBM calls
these "spiking neurons." What that means, essentially, is that the
chip can encode data as patterns of pulses, which is similar to one
of the many ways neuroscientists think the brain stores information.'
http://www.wired.com/2014/08/ibm-unveils-a-brain-like-chip-with-4000-processor-cores/?mbid=social_twitter
Saturday, August 9, 2014
Thursday, August 7, 2014
ALS
Although respiratory support can ease problems with breathing and prolong survival, it does not affect the progression of ALS. Most people with ALS die from respiratory failure, usually within three to five years from the onset of symptoms. The median survival time from onset to death is around 39 months, and only 4% survive longer than 10 years. Physicist Stephen Hawking has lived with the disease for more than 50 years, though he is an unusual case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Fwd: Aging
bone marrow transplantation. The immune system ages and weakens with
time, making the elderly prone to life-threatening infection and other
maladies, and a UC San Francisco research team now has discovered a
reason why.
"We have found the cellular mechanism responsible for the inability of
blood-forming cells to maintain blood production over time in an old
organism, and have identified molecular defects that could be restored
for rejuvenation therapies," said Emmanuelle Passegué, PhD, a
professor of medicine and a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center
of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF. Passegué, an
expert on the stem cells that give rise to the blood and immune
system, led a team that published the new findings online July 30,
2014 in the journal Nature.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-07/uoc--kta073014.php
Alzheimer's
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Fwd: Steam
'A new material structure developed at MIT generates steam by soaking up the sun. The structure -- a layer of graphite flakes and an underlying carbon foam -- is a porous, insulating material structure that floats on water. When sunlight hits the structure's surface, it creates a hotspot in the graphite, drawing water up through the material's pores, where it evaporates as steam.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140724213957.htm