Vibrations of soft tissues located at the back of our throats cause the noisy, annoying sounds of snoring that sometimes prevent non-snorers from getting their ZZZZs. The palate, uvula and tonsils are the tissue structures that flap against each other when someone has too much tissue at the back of their mouth or when an obstruction is blocking the air passageway to the back of the throat. People with snoring problems tend to have one of the following conditions: · Poor muscle tone in the tongue and throat · Excessive bulkiness of throat tissue · Long soft palate and/or uvula tissue in the back of the mouth · Obstructed nasal airways Snoring has such effects as irritability, lack of focus, decreased libido, daytime sleepiness. Snoring also causes psychological and social damage, it strains social relationships.Snoring can be a serious medical problem because it disturbs sleeping patterns and deprives the snorer of necessary rest. What is this news talking about? It is talking about the fact that the number of people having snoring in their sleep increasing and yet not much people know why this is an important issue. Snoring in sleep not only cause the snorer to be unable to sleep comfortably but nearby people around the snorer will also be affected. But the most serious problem is that snoring can lead to some case of diseases and even death due to the fact of losing oxygen when snoring. Hence, overall, this news is to warn people to be more serious when facing this problem and should seek a doctor immediately for how to cure this ‘illness’ in order to save yourself and let yourself and others have a nice sleep. My opinion:
I think that snoring is really a problem. I used to share a room with my elder brother, and every night, he would snore like a bear causing me having problems to sleep. However, after a few years of snoring, I could not take it anymore and took him to the hospital for solutions and his problem was solved. So, now I must warn everyone that snoring is a serious thing and it must not be overlooked and seek for help at the hospital as it affects your daily life also since snorers are actually first listed in the risk group. I warn all of you not to be embarrassed when you see a doctor due to the fact that you snore as seeking a doctor only embarrasses you for an hour at most but snoring every night will lead to more embarrassment. There are already a lot of ways to treat this problem such as wearing a snoring mask, so what are all of you waiting for? Go and see a doctor for help, like my brother!
Chlorophyll gets an ‘f’
A new kind of chlorophyll that catches sunlight from just beyond the red end of the visible light spectrum has been discovered. The new pigment extends the known range of light that is usable by most photosynthetic organisms. Harnessing this pigment’s power could lead to biofuel-generating algae that are super-efficient, using a greater spread of sunlight than thought possible. The newfound pigment, dubbed chlorophyll f, absorbs light most efficiently at a wavelength around 706 nanometres, just beyond the red end of the visible spectrum, researchers report online August 19 in Science. This unique absorbance appears to occur thanks to a chemical decoration known as a formyl group on the chlorophyll’s carbon number two. That chemical tweak probably allows the algae like organism that makes chlorophyll f to conduct photosynthesis while living beneath other photosynthesizers that capture all the other usable light. There is still much to be learned about the new type of chlorophyll and the organisms that make it, Niyogi says. Chlorophyll f was extracted from the ground-up stromatolites along with a lot of chlorophyll a. It isn’t clear what creature was making chlorophyll f, but evidence points to a filamentous cyanobacterium. This cyanobacterium might use both chlorophylls, and perhaps just f. What is the news talking about? This piece of news is actually talking about scientist discovering a new kind of unique chlorophyll named chlorophyll f which captures light energy not direct from the sun but from beyond the red end of the visible light spectrum. This finding could maybe improve our daily life by making algae work faster. Also, this finding also meant that there may be still other plants that used this kind of chlorophyll but is not yet detected and also this still meant that there are still lots of space for experiments and research as this is just the first step where not many things were clear such as the fact that the source of the chlorophyll f is still an unknown. My opinion: It had been 60 years since the last type of chlorophyll had been found, the normal one which we talks about. However, another science breakthrough again, chlorophyll had been found on other plants! I feel that this is really a great thing. This is nothing else but a proof that there is still a lot of things in this world that human had not discovered and there is still hope for many things such as objects or living things that can reduce carbon dioxide in the air and others etc.. Life is always full of hopes so “LONG LIVE SCIENTIST, HOPE YOU FIND MORE DISCOVERIES THAT AIDS US IN OUR PROBLEMS NOW”!!
Wind turns to gold in remote Romanian region
COGEALAC, Romania (AFP) – Strong winds sweeping south-eastern Romania have long been seen as a curse but as companies are increasingly turning to renewable energy, the area has become a coveted asset. Romania's decision to open up its wind-power market has triggered fierce competition among investors, several of whom target the Dobroudja region, described by experts as one of the best sites in Europe. In June, Czech company CEZ started operating its first wind energy unit in Romania, at Fantanele, 260 kilometres (170 miles) east of Bucharest. The 1.1-billion-euro (1.45-billion-dollar) energy farm, expected to become the biggest in Europe next year, will have a capacity of 600 Megawatts. But CEZ's plans to expand to the neighbouring village of Cogealac have been hampered by Spanish energy giant Iberdrola, which has set its mind on the same site. Iberdrola and its local partner Eolica Dobrogea have announced plans to build the world's largest land-based wind-energy farm, with a capacity of 1,600 megawatts. Total investment should top 2.2 billion euros. The rivalry between the two groups sparked a violent protest last week, when the mayor of Cogealac backed by several dozen followers, some of them carrying clubs, tried to drive the Czechs away from the village. Security guards fired rubber bullets, with the protest leaving five people injured, while five others -- including mayor Hristu Cati -- were arrested for disturbing the peace as the project got caught up in allegations of corruption. Prosecutors said Hristu Cati was arrested for paying villagers take part in the protest against the wind farm. "Hristu ... is making us lose a lot of money that CEZ would have invested at Cogealac," said Doina, 53, a former local councillor who does not want her family name to be mentioned. In a region where people hardly make a living by tilling the arid land, the Czech investment was nothing short of a windfall -- the company pays 3,000 euros a year as rent for every plot of land where it installs a windturbine. Sitting at a table in Fantanele's only bar, a beer in front of him, Marin, a driver in his thirties, wishes he was one of the happy few. "Boy, why wasn't I so lucky to have a wind turbine fall from the sky on my land? That would have pulled me out of poverty." CEZ spokesperson Cosmina Marin said benefits for the local community go far beyond this. "We have repaired the roads, installed running water and plan to build a sewage system and pay for a rubbish dump." All in all, the company has invested several hundred thousand euros in modernizing the infrastructure of Fantanele, she said, adding that the same could be done at Cogealac if it were not for the mayor's "nonsensical" attitude. "I don't get him, there's enough wind for everybody here." But wind power does come with restraints, experts say. Limited grid access is one. For if Romania enjoys a privileged position on Europe's wind map, with a potential estimated at 14,000 megawatts, the national grid can only take on 3,000 megawatts. Economy Minister Adriean Videanu said recently the authorities have received requests for a total production of 23,000 megawatts, "far more than the system can take." Companies such as Enel (Italy), EDP (Portugal) and Petrom-OMV (Austria) figure among the groups planning to invest. But electricity system operator Transelectrica said that in the absence of major investments, the national grid cannot carry a much bigger load. "Things could otherwise be risky because wind energy is whimsical." But for now at least, the market is open -- Romania harnessed just 14 megawatts of wind power in 2009. What does this news tells us? It tells us that in Czech, a windturbine park will be set up but this park is different from the other park. It would be having windturbine that can generates more electricity than normal average windturbine used around the world. Adding to that, the surrounding of the land around this park is clear from high-rise buildings and there is nothing to block the incoming of the wind, more fuel can be saved with the higher production of electricity through wind. My opinion: Wow, after so many news of flood and typhoon etc., we finally had good news. Obviously, conversion of wind to electricity had been widely used around the world by everyone and every country but in this case, it is special. Now, science had already been used to earn money! The companies which were wise to invest in this kind of things are sure going to be rich as each new built wind-electricity generator, with newer technologies, can generates up to 14,000 megawatts as compared to others which were obviously lower. So, science is really special thing which it can help people earn money, save people and also unfortunately kill people.
Coffee perks up memory and balance
CHICAGO Millions of Americans start their day with a cup of coffee and then reach for refills when their energy or attention flags. But new research in rats suggests that for the aging brain, coffee may serve as more than a mere stimulant. It can boost memory and the signalling essential to motor coordination. But here's the rub: If the same effects hold for humans, downing a morning cup or two just won’t cut it. The new data, presented July 20 at the Institute of Food Technologists annual meeting, showed that among elderly rats, the best results emerged after months of downing the human equivalent of 10 cups per day. And before you ask: No, that didn’t leave the furry test subjects jittery. “They weren’t hyper at all,” notes Barbara Shukitt-Hale of the Agriculture Department’s Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. “You’d think that with the equivalent of 10 cups per day they would be. But in fact,” the experimental psychologist observes, “you couldn’t tell the difference between a rat that had been getting the equivalent of 15 cups a day [the highest administered dose] and the rat that had none.” For instance, when placed in a pool for a water-maze test, those that had been downing the super doses didn’t swim any faster in their rush to find a safe haven and climb out of the yucky water. Reflection: What is the news talking about: This news is talking about the new positive effect of coffee being discovered. Usually, coffee was only used by people to give them the energy to wake up and continue what they are doing but now, it is discovered that it is also good in aiding our memories. A experiment tested on rats, which were known to be almost the same as human, had seen that the rats had no side effect after drinking lots of coffee and their memories also improved for a certain time limit. My opinion: Hmmm.. Coffee it seems more useful and useful now! I remember when I was just born, it was just something that every old uncle and aunties drank so as for fun but now, as the years passed, more and more people drink coffee not for their taste but also their effect and the age of people drinking it is also decreasing. And now, It had one more good effect which can make coffee more popular and ‘useful’ as this effect was here long ago but it was just that technologies last time was not strong enough to detect this kind of things. Science indeed changes as time passes, with the introduction of newer and newer technologies. Bandages that could bite back The human body has a natural block to keep out bacteria that would cause infections: skin. But when the skin gets burned, it’s not only painful; it’s bad for the body. Burned skin cannot keep the bacteria out, so infections are common. That’s why doctors who treat burn victims have to look out for the slightest sign of dangerous infection. Doctors often wrap burns in bandages for protection, but a recent study shows that a new kind of bandage can actually fight infection. Better yet, this new bandage can use the harmful bacteria against themselves — in other words, the infection-causing organisms cause their own deaths. Toby Jenkins, a scientist at the University of Bath in England, worked on the study. Jenkins and his colleagues developed a material that contains tiny capsules. But these carefully designed packets aren’t what they seem: To a bacterium, these capsules look like cells just waiting to be invaded. What the little invaders don’t know, however, is that the capsules contain antibiotics, which are chemical compounds that can kill bacteria on contact. The bacteria attack the cells by releasing toxins, or poisons. But when the bacteria attack the capsules, the capsules fight back — by releasing antibiotics that knock out any nearby bacteria. It’s an unusual idea — using bacteria against themselves. Jenkins and the other scientists tested the material on two types of harmful bacteria. One was a type ofStaphylococcus bacteria; the other was a type of Pseudomonas bacteria. When researchers placed scraps of the new material in a Petri dish with the bacteria, the bacteria barely grew at all, this is unusual. This observation led the researchers to believe that the bacteria had attacked the fabric, and that the antibiotics had been released — which kept the bacteria from growing. The scientists want the bandages to work specifically against dangerous bacteria, so they also tested the fabric on a harmless type of E. coli bacteria. When the scrap of fabric was placed in a Petri dish with E. coli, the bacteria grew quickly — showing that the trap didn’t fool the harmless bacteria. The harmful bacteria probably released toxins that burst the capsules open, while the harmless E. coli left the capsules alone. This early experiment shows that the material can selectively kill dangerous bacteria, but it’s too early to start using the material in hospitals. “This is a nice approach and they’ve shown in principle that it works,” Christopher Batich, a biomedical engineer at the University of Florida in Gainesville, toldScience News. Batich did not work on the study. While he’s excited about the results, he added that the real world is more complicated than this experiment. “You’d have to work with real bacteria and real wounds to see if it makes a difference,” he says. Jenkins and his colleagues are back at work improving the healing fabric. In the not-so-distant future, this kind of antibacterial bandage may move from the laboratory to the hospital bed — and give burn victims a fighting chance against infection. What is the news talking about: It is about the new invention which improves the original bandage. This invention is first sparked by the saying “curing poison with poison” and hence, this invention used the bacteria which is a metaphor of the poison to counter the bacteria by deflecting the wave of bacteria using antibiotics. Even though this is a good step ahead, the experimenters were still not satisfied and it is said that they will most probably introduce this technique into operations and other places. My opinion: Wow, indeed science is always in our lives. It not only helps us detect things that had happened in the past, it also helped us improve things now that we had been using for years. However, one thing that I am curious is that how does this change anything. Does this change the speed of recovered? If not, I really wonders if this way is really needed since it can do the same thing but extra things are needed but still, a good effort to think and invent this kind of things!
Afraid of its own fishy reflection
Male cichlids are mainly freshwater fish that may go after other fish who dare cross their path. A male cichlid will even lunge if that “other fish” happens to be himself: When some types of these cichlids see their own reflections in a mirror, they respond as aggressively as when they encounter a real fish opponent. A new study suggests that even though these two situations may look the same, a fish’s brain actually reacts differently in each case. Researchers from Stanford University recently studied male cichlids that fight their own reflections. The team observed that the part of the brain associated with fear and other negative emotions becomes active when the fish fight their mirror images. Julie K. Desjardins, one of the scientists who worked on the study, says it’s not clear whether the research is finding “fear”— that is, the scientists are not sure that the fish are afraid of themselves. Even if it’s not fear, the fish is having a negative response, something besides the aggression it usually shows toward another fish, she told Science News. The study by Desjardins and Russell Fernald, her colleague at Stanford, is the first to show that a fish’s brain reacts differently when the fish sees its own reflection. That doesn’t mean, however, that the fish recognizes itself. Scientists use mirrors to try to study the consciousness of animals. Previous studies have shown that great apes, elephants, dolphins and magpies (a type of bird) look into a mirror and know they see themselves, Diana Reiss told Science News. Reiss is a scientist at Hunter College in New York City who tries to understand animal cognition, or how animals think. She says not every animal knows its mirror self — monkeys and fish, for example, don’t seem to recognize themselves in the mirror. In the new study, Desjardins and Fernald did not observe a difference in the behaviors of fish going after other fish compared with fish going after their own reflections. And when the scientists looked at hormones in the fish, they didn’t see a difference. But when they looked in the fish’s brain, using a technique called immediate early gene (IEG) expression, they found a difference. With this technique, the scientists watched particular genes in the fish that were associated with particular regions of the brain. Measuring IEG helped the scientists to determine which areas of the brain were more active than others. “It’s a kind of fishy MRI,” Desjardins told Science News. MRI stands for magnetic resonance imaging, a tool that gives scientists an idea of what’s going on inside the brain. When a fish went after its own reflection, the scientists found that the fish brain was especially active in a region similar to the amygdala. In human beings and other animals, the amygdala is associated with fear and other negative emotions. When the male cichlids went after other fish, they didn’t have the same activity in their amygdala regions — showing that their brains reacted differently when they looked themselves in the fishy face. Using IEG expression to study fishy fear is new and unusual, but some older studies have shown similar results in other animals. Monkeys, for example, have not been shown to recognize themselves — but they do act differently around their own reflections than they do around other monkeys. This experiment shows how mirrors can be used to study brain activity, even for animals that don’t recognize themselves. What is this news talking about: This news is talking about what happens to some animals when they see their own reflection but it focus mainly on the fishes. It says that the experimenters were at first trying to find if cichlids were afraid of their own reflection but they were unable to have any results. Hence, they decided to use IEG to find the activities in their brains when they see their reflection to see the results. As a result, they found out that the brains acted differently when they see their own reflection and when they did this experiment on other animals such as monkey, no change was spotted. Hence, it is hard to define if ‘fear’ was there at all. My opinion: So, this science news tells us that the real reason for the reaction of animals when they met their own reflection. The difference in the activities of the brain when meeting their own reflection, does it shows that the mentality of different animals? Does it really meant that if the activities of the brain changed, it meant that the animal is wise and is able to detect and digest what It seen but when the animal does not reacts, like the monkey, does it meant that they are ‘stupid’ animals but monkey is said to be a highly curious and smart animal.
Orange Peels, Newspapers May Lead to Cheaper, Cleaner Ethanol Fuel
University of Central Florida professor Henry Daniell has developed a groundbreaking way to produce ethanol from waste products such as orange peels and newspapers. His approach is greener and less expensive than the current methods available to run vehicles on cleaner fuel -- and his goal is to relegate gasoline to a secondary fuel. Daniell's breakthrough can be applied to several non-food products throughout the United States, including sugarcane, switchgrass and straw. "This could be a turning point where vehicles could use this fuel as the norm for protecting our air and environment for future generations," he said. Daniell's technique -- developed with U.S. Department of Agriculture funding -- uses plant-derived enzyme cocktails to break down orange peels and other waste materials into sugar, which is then fermented into ethanol. Corn starch now is fermented and converted into ethanol. But ethanol derived from corn produces more greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline does. Ethanol created using Daniell's approach produces much lower greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline or electricity. There's also an abundance of waste products that could be used without reducing the world's food supply or driving up food prices. In Florida alone, discarded orange peels could create about 200 million gallons of ethanol each year, Daniell said. More research is needed before Daniell's findings, published this month in Plant Biotechnology Journal, can move from his laboratory to the market. But other scientists conducting research in biofuels describe the early results as promising. "Dr. Henry Daniell's team's success in producing a combination of several cell wall degrading enzymes in plants using chloroplast transgenesis is a great achievement," said Mariam Sticklen, a professor of crop and soil sciences at Michigan State University. In 2008, she received international media attention for her research looking at an enzyme in a cow's stomach that could help turn corn plants into fuel. Daniell said no company in the world can produce cellulosic ethanol -- ethanol that comes from wood or the non-edible parts of plants. Depending on the waste product used, a specific combination or "cocktail" of more than 10 enzymes is needed to change the biomass into sugar and eventually ethanol. Orange peels need more of the pectinase enzyme, while wood waste requires more of the xylanase enzyme. All of the enzymes Daniell's team uses are found in nature, created by a range of microbial species, including bacteria and fungi. Daniell's team cloned genes from wood-rotting fungi or bacteria and produced enzymes in tobacco plants. Producing these enzymes in tobacco instead of manufacturing synthetic versions could reduce the cost of production by a thousand times, which should significantly reduce the cost of making ethanol, Daniell said. Tobacco was chosen as an ideal system for enzyme production for several reasons. It is not a food crop, it produces large amounts of energy per acre and an alternate use could potentially decrease its use for smoking. Daniell's team includes Dheeraj Verma, Anderson Kanagaraj, Shuangxia Jin, Nameirakpam Singh and Pappachan E. Kolattukudy in the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences at UCF's College of Medicine. Genes for the pectinase enzyme were cloned in Kolattukudy's laboratory. What is this news talking about: This piece of news is talking about a professor discovering a way to produce ethanol from waste products such as orange peels and newspapers. Other non-food products were also in his list of convertible items. The main point is also that the process is cheap and green. This is really a good thing as at the same time of reducing the world's rubbish, it is also producing much lower greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline or elecricity. My opinion: I fell that this breakthrough is really good as its cheap and most importantly, environmentally friendly! It does not only help to prevent us from burning coal to produce fuels which cause global warming, it also helps us to reduce the garbage we dispose of since orange skin contributes to about 200 million gallons of garbage each year. Also it only uses materials which are cheap or you can even find from garbage bin unlike other way which has to use expensive materials and also sophisticated way to create the fuels. However, the use of these fuel in car still produces gas. The scientist may consider creating fuels which does not produce gas when used in cars or at least, produce minimum gas.But nevertheless, this finding still helps to reduce the air pollution.
Attacking Cancer Cells With Hydrogel Nanoparticles
Many cancers are characterized by an over abundance of epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR). When the EGFR level in a cell is elevated it tells the cell to replicate at a rapid rate. It also turns down apoptosis, or programmed cell death. "With our technique we're inhibiting EGFR's growth, with small interfering RNA. And by inhibiting it's growth, we're increasing the cells's apoptotic function. If we hit the cell with chemotherapy at the same time, we should be able to kill the cancer cells more effectively," said John McDonald, professor at the School of Biology at Georgia Tech and chief research scientist at the Ovarian Cancer Institute. Small interfering RNA is good at shutting down EGFR production, but once inside the cell siRNA has a limited life span. Keeping it protected inside the hydrogel nanoparticles allows them to get into the cancer cell safely and acts as a protective barrier around them. The hydrogel releases only a small amount of siRNA at a time, ensuring that while some are out in the cancer cell doing their job, reinforcements are held safely inside the nanoparticle until it's time to do their job. "It's like a Trojan horse," said L. Andrew Lyon, professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech. "We've decorated the surface of these hydrogels with a ligand that tricks the cancer cell into taking it up. Once inside, the particles have a slow release profile that leaks out the siRNA over a timescale of days, allowing it to have a therapeutic effect." Cells use the messenger RNA (mRNA) to generate proteins, which help to keep the cell growing. Once the siRNA enters the cell, it binds to the mRNA and recruits proteins that attack the siRNA-mRNA complex. But the cancer cell's not finished; it keeps generating proteins, so without a continuous supply of siRNA, the cell recovers. Using the hydrogel to slowly release the siRNA allows it to keep up a sustained attack so that it can continue to interrupt the production of proteins. "We've shown that you can get knock down out to a few days time frame, which could present a clinical window to come in and do multiple treatments in a combination chemotherapy approach," said Lyon. "The fact that this system is releasing the siRNA slowly, without giving the cell time to immediately recover, gives us much better efficiency at killing the cancer cells with chemotherapy," added McDonald. Previous techniques have involved using antibodies to knock down the proteins. "But oftentimes, a mutation may arise in the targeted gene such that the antibody will no longer have the effect it once did, thereby increasing the chance for recurrence," said McDonald. The team used hydrogels because they're non-toxic, have a relatively slow release rate, and can survive in the body long enough to reach their target. "It's a well-defined architecture that you're using the intrinsic porosity of that material to load things into, and since our particles are about 98 percent water by volume, there's plenty of internal volume in which to load things," said Lyon. Currently, the tests have been shown to work in vitro, but the team will be initiating tests in vivo shortly. What is this news talking about: A breakthrough had been dectected to be able to solve cancer with much safer and easier ways. The experimenter used the characteristic of the cancer cells and the new system that he created. This new system would then strengthen the cell, prevent the attack of cells by the cancer cells and also even if the cell is damaged by the cancer, the system will ambush the cancer cells and provide proteins to the cell, helping the cell recover. My opinion: I feel that this breakthrough is a good thing used fr curing cancers. As many people know, cancer is a deadly disease and in the past, the only way of solving the problem is to have surgery which is risky. But now, with this advanced way of killing the bad cell in the body, it is not only not dangerous, if may be even effective than the previous ways of curing cancers. However, the cell which is inputed into cancer patients can only last for a short while and may not be able to clear the cancer very quickly.Also,like most cure, it is not 100% successful. I hope that they may experiment more and find out a cure which can last longer and also heighten the possibility of clearing the cancer. Dreaming makes perfect Dreams can be familiar and strange, fantastical or boring. No one knows for certain why people dream, but some dreams might be connected to the mental processes that help us learn. In a recent study, scientists found a connection between nap-time dreams and better memory in people who were learning a new skill. So perhaps one way to learn something new is to practice, practice, practice — and then sleep on it. (Warning: This research still doesn’t provide an excuse for falling asleep during class.) “I was startled by this finding,” Robert Stickgold told Science News. He is a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School who worked on the study. Neuroscience is the study of how the brain and nervous system work, and cognitive studies look at how people learn and reason. So a cognitive neuroscientist may study the brain processes that help people learn. In the study, 99 college students between the ages of 18 and 30 each spent an hour on a computer, trying to get through a virtual maze. The maze was difficult, and the study participants had to start in a different place each time they tried — making it even more difficult. They were also told to find a particular picture of a tree and remember where it was. For the first 90 minutes of a five-hour break, half of the participants stayed awake and half were told to take a short nap. Participants who stayed awake were asked to describe their thoughts. Participants who took a nap were asked about their dreams before sleep and after sleep — and they were awakened within a minute of sleep to describe their dreams. Stickgold and his colleagues wanted to know about NREM, or non-REM sleep. REM stands for “rapid eye movement,” which is what happens during REM sleep. This period of sleep often brings bizarre dreams to a sleeper, although dreams can happen in both modes of sleep. Stickgold wanted to know what people were dreaming about when their eyes weren’t moving, during NREM sleep. In other studies, scientists had found a connection between NREM brain activity and learning ability in rats and in people. Four of the 50 people who slept said their dreams were connected to the maze. Some dreamed about the music that had been playing when they were working; others said they dreamed about seeing people in the maze. When these four people tried the computer maze again, they were able to find the tree faster than before their naps. Stickgold suggests the dream itself doesn’t help a person learn — it’s the other way around. He suspects that the dream was caused by the brain processes associated with learning. All four of the people who dreamed about the task had done poorly the first time, which makes Stickgold wonder if the NREM dreams show up when a person finds a new task particularly difficult. People who had other dreams, or people who didn’t take a nap, didn’t show the same improvement. What is this news talking about: This poem is actually talking about the ability to memorize something better after having a nap immediately after memorizing something. A experiment was conducted and the result was that the people who slept had their dreams about the question they were asked and hence were able to memorize them easily but for those who did not sleep, they were unable to do the same things but however a minority of 4 were still about to do so. But, this shows that taking a nap after meeting a hard question or needing to memorize something is going to help eases the job. My opinion:
Ha, now I can have a excuse to sleep at class!! If I have a afternoon nap and I can improve my memory in class, it meant that I will do even better than rather listening to the teacher nag. No wonder my friends who often slept in class did better in tests than me! But, I do not think that this thing works for everyone. For some people, their memories are better and a nap is not needed and while for some other people, their memories are weak and nothing is going to improve it.
Holes in Martian moon mystery
The Martian moon Phobos is cratered, lumpy and about 16.8 miles long, or 3 miles longer than the island of Manhattan. According to a recent study, the moon is also unusually light. Planetary scientists found that Phobos is probably not a solid object, and that as much as 30 percent of the moon’s interior may be empty space. That doesn’t mean that Phobos is an empty shell where we could, say, set up a rest stop for spaceships on their way to the outer planets. But the new finding probably does mean that Phobos was not an asteroid that got caught in Mars’ gravity as it floated by the planet. Phobos is the larger of Mars’ two moons, and astronomers have had many ideas about where it came from. Previous studies have suggested that Phobos was an asteroid. Other studies suggest the moon formed from bits of Martian rock that were sent into space after a giant object, like an asteroid, crashed in Mars. The new study suggests that neither of these ideas is completely correct. The truth might be some combination of the two. Scientists may never know how Phobos came to be a Martian satellite, but the new study may help eliminate some possibilities, Tom Andert told Science News. Andert, who worked on the new study, is a planetary geophysicist at the University of the German Armed Forces in Munich. A planetary geophysicist is a scientist who studies physical properties, such as rocks and appearance, to understand more about celestial bodies such as planets and moons. Andert and his colleagues were able to study Phobos thanks to theMars Express, a spacecraft that orbits Mars and takes measurements. That spacecraft left Earth in 2003 and is a project by the European Space Agency, or ESA. In March, Mars Express flew closer to Phobos than any spacecraft ever had before, ESA reports. The scientists wanted to learn the density of Phobos. Density measures how close together, on average, are the atoms in an object. If two objects are the same size but have different densities, the denser object will have more mass — which means it will feel heavier when you’re holding it on Earth. Density is found by dividing mass by volume. Since the scientists already had a good idea of the volume of Phobos, they just had to find its mass in order to figure out its density. They made their mass measurements by studying the gravitational force of Phobos. Gravity is an attractive force, which means anything with mass attracts anything else with mass. (A human body, for example, gravitationally attracts every other human body. Earth attracts those human bodies to it even more.) The more mass an object has, the stronger its gravitational force. Since a large body like the Earth has a lot of mass, it has a strong gravitational force — strong enough to hold people on its surface and the Moon in orbit. When Mars Express flew close to Phobos, the small moon’s gravity attracted the spacecraft. By studying changes in the motion of Mars Express, the scientists were able to estimate the gravitational tug of Phobos. Once they knew the strength of its gravity, they could find its mass. They found that Phobos has a density of about 1.87 grams per cubic centimeter. The rocks in the crust of Mars, for comparison, are much denser: about 3 grams per cubic centimeter. This difference suggests that Phobos is not made of rocks from the surface of Mars. Some asteroids have densities of about 1.87 grams per cubic centimeter, but Andert says that those asteroids would be broken apart by Mars’ gravity — a fact that probably rules out the possibility that Phobos was once a free-floating asteroid. Some scientists, like Tom Duxbury, don’t mind giving up the idea that Phobos was once an asteroid. “Finally we’re drifting away from the idea that the Martian moons are captured asteroids,” Duxbury told Science News. Duxbury, of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., did not work on the new study but also studies planets. He told Science News that he’s “happy to see that Phobos and Deimos [Mars’ other moon] are getting a lot of attention these days.” What is this news talking about: This news is talking about the discovery that the Phobos, a satellite of Mars, is actually hollow in which about 30% of it is actually empty. Other than this, not much was discovered and the rest of the news only described about the natural satellite and some doubts of the scientists about its source. My opinion:
Ok, another finding about the things in the universe, beyond mother earth. These days, repeating news about the findings of things in space had been released and this meant that we, mankind and finally getting closer and closer to be able to fully understand the universe more. Although this news are just small pieces of unimportant news, who knows one day when all the news were combined together, it might help scientist solve some puzzles that are not able to be solved now. Carry on the jobs astronauts!
SELF-RESEARCH
ALGAE Some things i am going to cover:
What is Algae
Characteristic of some Algae
Importance of Algae
Algae
• A large group of primitive plants with more than 20,000 species • Is the primary producer • Produce vitamins and unsaturated fatty acids • produce hydrogen needed for fuel cells • Clean the water it is in • Found in almost every climate and condition existing on earth. • Grow in fresh water, on the shores of beaches, moist rocks and in soil, snow and ice. • Green algae grows at the bottom of the sea. • Brown algae is found in the Gulf Stream and Sargasso Sea. Diatoms • More than 100,000 species of diatoms • Tiniest Algae and is a single cell which makes its own protective shell • Shapes vary from spheres, rods, and triangles to boxes and others • Used as insulation and optical image quality Blue-Green Algae • Are usually simple one-celled organisms • Found in the soil and in both fresh and salt water • Used for weight loss and nutritional supplements • Used for boosting the immune system and for controlling cholesterol levels Green Algae • Formed mainly in fresh water or moist soil • Some gives water in pond and reservoirs a ‘fishy’ taste and odour • Help to purify sewage • Can be treated as food Red Algae • Grow mostly in salt water especially in tropical regions • Vary greatly in structure and appearance and many have beautiful shapes. • can produce agar which is gel capsule which is also a base for cosmetic. • Can produce food and water Brown algae • More than 1,500 species • Live along rocky seashores • Used for cosmetic • Treated as food • Used as fertilizer for agriculture crops
Importance of Algae to Land life: Oxygen Level
• Atmosphere on Early Earth, • dominated by carbon dioxide • lack of oxygen • does not support life. • Blue-green algae and other seaweed • reduce carbon dioxide level to the current 0.03% • Increase oxygen level to the current 21% •Importance of algae to land life: water cycle •"The cycle of life is intricately tied up with the cycle of water."
-Quote byJacques Cousteau • Water is important in supporting life • Importance of Algae to the Human Civilisation: Fertiliser
• Used as a organic soil fertilizer in place of artificial nitrates • Example: Maerl, a type of red algae, found on the seabed off the coast of Cornwall • Importance of Algae to the Human Civilisation : Used as building material • When Algae dies, they sink to the ocean floor and, over millions of years, get crushed into limestone
Bacteria A few things I am going to cover:
What is Bacteria
Growth and reproduction of Bacteria
Genetic of Bacteria
1. What are Bacteria? Bacteria are microscopic organisms whose single cells have neither a membrane-bounded nucleus nor other membrane-bounded organelles like mitochondria and chloroplasts. Another group of microbes, the archaea, meet these criteria but are so different from the bacteria in other ways that they must have had a long, independent evolutionary history since close to the dawn of life. In fact, there is considerable evidence that you are more closely related to the archaea than they are to the Bacteria! 2. Reproduction of Bacteria Bacteria carry out reproduction by cell division. Bacteria grow to a fixed size and then reproduce through binary fission, a form of asexual reproduction. Under some conditions, bacteria can grow and divide extremely rapidly, and bacterial populations can double as quickly as every 9.8 minutes. In cell division, two identical clone daughter cells are produced. Some bacteria, while still reproducing asexually, form more complex reproductive structures that help disperse the newly formed daughter cells. 3. Growth of Bacteria Bacterial growth follows three phases. When a population of bacteria first enter a high-nutrient environment that allows growth, the cells need to adapt to their new environment. The first phase of growth is the lag phase, a period of slow growth when the cells are adapting to the high-nutrient environment and preparing for fast growth. The lag phase has high biosynthesis rates, as proteins necessary for rapid growth are produced. The second phase of growth is the logarithmic phase (log phase), also known as the exponential phase. The log phase is marked by rapid exponential growth. The rate at which cells grow during this phase is known as the growth rate (k), and the time it takes the cells to double is known as the generation time (g). During log phase, nutrients are metabolised at maximum speed until one of the nutrients is depleted and starts limiting growth. The final phase of growth is the stationary phase and is caused by depleted nutrients. The cells reduce their metabolic activity and consume non-essential cellular proteins. The stationary phase is a transition from rapid growth to a stress response state and there is increased expression of genes involved in DNA repair, antioxidant metabolism and nutrient transport. 4. Genetic of Bacteria Most bacteria have a single circular chromosome that can range in size from only 160,000 base pairs in the endosymbiotic bacteria Candidatus Carsonella ruddii, to 12,200,000 base pairs in the soil-dwelling bacteria Sorangium cellulosum. Spirochaetes of the genus Borrelia are a notable exception to this arrangement, with bacteria such as Borrelia burgdorferi, the cause of Lyme disease, containing a single linear chromosome. The genes in bacterial genomes are usually a single continuous stretch of DNA and although several different types of introns do exist in bacteria, these are much rarer than in eukaryotes.
Bioluminescence We will be covering:
What is Bioluminescence
Characteristic of Bioluminescence
Proposed applications of engineered Bioluminescence
1. What is Bioluminescence Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism. Its name is a hybrid word, originating from the Greek bios for "living" and the Latin lumen "light". Bioluminescence is a naturally occurring form of chemiluminescence where energy is released by a chemical reaction in the form of light emission. Fireflies, anglerfish, and other creatures produce the chemicals luciferin (a pigment) and luciferase (an enzyme). The luceferin reacts with oxygen to create light. The luciferase acts as a catalyst to speed up the reaction, which is sometimes mediated by cofactors such as calcium ions or ATP. The chemical reaction can occur either inside or outside the cell. In bacteria, the expression of genes related to bioluminescence is controlled by an operon called the Lux operon. Based on its diversity and phylogenetic distribution, it is estimated that bioluminescence has arisen independently as many as 30 times in the course of evolution.
2. Characteristic of Bioluminescence Bioluminescence is a form of luminescence, or "cold light" emission; less than 20% of the light generates thermal radiation. It should not be confused with fluorescence, phosphorescence or refraction of light.
Ninety percent of deep-sea marine lives are estimated to produce bioluminescence in one form or another. Most marine light-emission belongs in the blue and green light spectrum, the wavelengths that can transmit through the seawater most easily. However, certain loose-jawed fish emit red and infrared light and the genus Tomopteris emits yellow bioluminescence.
Non-marine bioluminescence is less widely distributed, but a larger variety in colours is seen. The two best-known forms of land bioluminescence are fireflies and glow worms. Other insects, insect larvae, annelids,arachnids and even species of fungi have been noted to possess bioluminescent abilities.
3. Proposed applications of engineered bioluminescence
Some proposed applications of engineered bioluminescence include:
Glowing trees to line rhighways to save government electricity bills
Christmas trees that do not need lights, reducing danger from electrical fires
Agricultural crops and domestic plants that luminesce when they need watering
New methods for detecting bacterial contamination of meats and other foods
Bio-identifiers for escaped convicts and mental patients
Detecting bacterial species in suspicious corpses
Novelty pets that bioluminesce (rabbits, mice, fish etc.)
Why do people snore?
Vibrations of soft tissues located at the back of our throats cause the noisy, annoying sounds of snoring that sometimes prevent non-snorers from getting their ZZZZs.
The palate, uvula and tonsils are the tissue structures that flap against each other when someone has too much tissue at the back of their mouth or when an obstruction is blocking the air passageway to the back of the throat.
People with snoring problems tend to have one of the following conditions:
· Poor muscle tone in the tongue and throat
· Excessive bulkiness of throat tissue
· Long soft palate and/or uvula tissue in the back of the mouth
· Obstructed nasal airways
Snoring has such effects as irritability, lack of focus, decreased libido, daytime sleepiness. Snoring also causes psychological and social damage, it strains social relationships.Snoring can be a serious medical problem because it disturbs sleeping patterns and deprives the snorer of necessary rest.
What is this news talking about?
It is talking about the fact that the number of people having snoring in their sleep increasing and yet not much people know why this is an important issue. Snoring in sleep not only cause the snorer to be unable to sleep comfortably but nearby people around the snorer will also be affected. But the most serious problem is that snoring can lead to some case of diseases and even death due to the fact of losing oxygen when snoring. Hence, overall, this news is to warn people to be more serious when facing this problem and should seek a doctor immediately for how to cure this ‘illness’ in order to save yourself and let yourself and others have a nice sleep.
My opinion:
I think that snoring is really a problem. I used to share a room with my elder brother, and every night, he would snore like a bear causing me having problems to sleep. However, after a few years of snoring, I could not take it anymore and took him to the hospital for solutions and his problem was solved. So, now I must warn everyone that snoring is a serious thing and it must not be overlooked and seek for help at the hospital as it affects your daily life also since snorers are actually first listed in the risk group. I warn all of you not to be embarrassed when you see a doctor due to the fact that you snore as seeking a doctor only embarrasses you for an hour at most but snoring every night will lead to more embarrassment. There are already a lot of ways to treat this problem such as wearing a snoring mask, so what are all of you waiting for? Go and see a doctor for help, like my brother!
Chlorophyll gets an ‘f’
A new kind of chlorophyll that catches sunlight from just beyond the red end of the visible light spectrum has been discovered. The new pigment extends the known range of light that is usable by most photosynthetic organisms. Harnessing this pigment’s power could lead to biofuel-generating algae that are super-efficient, using a greater spread of sunlight than thought possible.The newfound pigment, dubbed chlorophyll f, absorbs light most efficiently at a wavelength around 706 nanometres, just beyond the red end of the visible spectrum, researchers report online August 19 in Science. This unique absorbance appears to occur thanks to a chemical decoration known as a formyl group on the chlorophyll’s carbon number two. That chemical tweak probably allows the algae like organism that makes chlorophyll f to conduct photosynthesis while living beneath other photosynthesizers that capture all the other usable light.
There is still much to be learned about the new type of chlorophyll and the organisms that make it, Niyogi says. Chlorophyll f was extracted from the ground-up stromatolites along with a lot of chlorophyll a. It isn’t clear what creature was making chlorophyll f, but evidence points to a filamentous cyanobacterium. This cyanobacterium might use both chlorophylls, and perhaps just f.
What is the news talking about?
This piece of news is actually talking about scientist discovering a new kind of unique chlorophyll named chlorophyll f which captures light energy not direct from the sun but from beyond the red end of the visible light spectrum. This finding could maybe improve our daily life by making algae work faster. Also, this finding also meant that there may be still other plants that used this kind of chlorophyll but is not yet detected and also this still meant that there are still lots of space for experiments and research as this is just the first step where not many things were clear such as the fact that the source of the chlorophyll f is still an unknown.
My opinion:
It had been 60 years since the last type of chlorophyll had been found, the normal one which we talks about. However, another science breakthrough again, chlorophyll had been found on other plants! I feel that this is really a great thing. This is nothing else but a proof that there is still a lot of things in this world that human had not discovered and there is still hope for many things such as objects or living things that can reduce carbon dioxide in the air and others etc.. Life is always full of hopes so “LONG LIVE SCIENTIST, HOPE YOU FIND MORE DISCOVERIES THAT AIDS US IN OUR PROBLEMS NOW”!!
Wind turns to gold in remote Romanian region
COGEALAC, Romania (AFP) – Strong winds sweeping south-eastern Romania have long been seen as a curse but as companies are increasingly turning to renewable energy, the area has become a coveted asset.Romania's decision to open up its wind-power market has triggered fierce competition among investors, several of whom target the Dobroudja region, described by experts as one of the best sites in Europe.
In June, Czech company CEZ started operating its first wind energy unit in Romania, at Fantanele, 260 kilometres (170 miles) east of Bucharest.
The 1.1-billion-euro (1.45-billion-dollar) energy farm, expected to become the biggest in Europe next year, will have a capacity of 600 Megawatts.
But CEZ's plans to expand to the neighbouring village of Cogealac have been hampered by Spanish energy giant Iberdrola, which has set its mind on the same site.
Iberdrola and its local partner Eolica Dobrogea have announced plans to build the world's largest land-based wind-energy farm, with a capacity of 1,600 megawatts. Total investment should top 2.2 billion euros.
The rivalry between the two groups sparked a violent protest last week, when the mayor of Cogealac backed by several dozen followers, some of them carrying clubs, tried to drive the Czechs away from the village.
Security guards fired rubber bullets, with the protest leaving five people injured, while five others -- including mayor Hristu Cati -- were arrested for disturbing the peace as the project got caught up in allegations of corruption.
Prosecutors said Hristu Cati was arrested for paying villagers take part in the protest against the wind farm.
"Hristu ... is making us lose a lot of money that CEZ would have invested at Cogealac," said Doina, 53, a former local councillor who does not want her family name to be mentioned.
In a region where people hardly make a living by tilling the arid land, the Czech investment was nothing short of a windfall -- the company pays 3,000 euros a year as rent for every plot of land where it installs a windturbine.
Sitting at a table in Fantanele's only bar, a beer in front of him, Marin, a driver in his thirties, wishes he was one of the happy few. "Boy, why wasn't I so lucky to have a wind turbine fall from the sky on my land? That would have pulled me out of poverty."
CEZ spokesperson Cosmina Marin said benefits for the local community go far beyond this. "We have repaired the roads, installed running water and plan to build a sewage system and pay for a rubbish dump."
All in all, the company has invested several hundred thousand euros in modernizing the infrastructure of Fantanele, she said, adding that the same could be done at Cogealac if it were not for the mayor's "nonsensical" attitude.
"I don't get him, there's enough wind for everybody here."
But wind power does come with restraints, experts say. Limited grid access is one.
For if Romania enjoys a privileged position on Europe's wind map, with a potential estimated at 14,000 megawatts, the national grid can only take on 3,000 megawatts.
Economy Minister Adriean Videanu said recently the authorities have received requests for a total production of 23,000 megawatts, "far more than the system can take."
Companies such as Enel (Italy), EDP (Portugal) and Petrom-OMV (Austria) figure among the groups planning to invest.
But electricity system operator Transelectrica said that in the absence of major investments, the national grid cannot carry a much bigger load.
"Things could otherwise be risky because wind energy is whimsical."
But for now at least, the market is open -- Romania harnessed just 14 megawatts of wind power in 2009.
What does this news tells us?
It tells us that in Czech, a windturbine park will be set up but this park is different from the other park. It would be having windturbine that can generates more electricity than normal average windturbine used around the world. Adding to that, the surrounding of the land around this park is clear from high-rise buildings and there is nothing to block the incoming of the wind, more fuel can be saved with the higher production of electricity through wind.
My opinion:
Wow, after so many news of flood and typhoon etc., we finally had good news. Obviously, conversion of wind to electricity had been widely used around the world by everyone and every country but in this case, it is special. Now, science had already been used to earn money! The companies which were wise to invest in this kind of things are sure going to be rich as each new built wind-electricity generator, with newer technologies, can generates up to 14,000 megawatts as compared to others which were obviously lower. So, science is really special thing which it can help people earn money, save people and also unfortunately kill people.
Coffee perks up memory and balance
CHICAGO Millions of Americans start their day with a cup of coffee and then reach for refills when their energy or attention flags. But new research in rats suggests that for the aging brain, coffee may serve as more than a mere stimulant. It can boost memory and the signalling essential to motor coordination.But here's the rub: If the same effects hold for humans, downing a morning cup or two just won’t cut it. The new data, presented July 20 at the Institute of Food Technologists annual meeting, showed that among elderly rats, the best results emerged after months of downing the human equivalent of 10 cups per day.
And before you ask: No, that didn’t leave the furry test subjects jittery.
“They weren’t hyper at all,” notes Barbara Shukitt-Hale of the Agriculture Department’s Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. “You’d think that with the equivalent of 10 cups per day they would be. But in fact,” the experimental psychologist observes, “you couldn’t tell the difference between a rat that had been getting the equivalent of 15 cups a day [the highest administered dose] and the rat that had none.” For instance, when placed in a pool for a water-maze test, those that had been downing the super doses didn’t swim any faster in their rush to find a safe haven and climb out of the yucky water.
Reflection:
What is the news talking about:
This news is talking about the new positive effect of coffee being discovered. Usually, coffee was only used by people to give them the energy to wake up and continue what they are doing but now, it is discovered that it is also good in aiding our memories. A experiment tested on rats, which were known to be almost the same as human, had seen that the rats had no side effect after drinking lots of coffee and their memories also improved for a certain time limit.
My opinion:
Hmmm.. Coffee it seems more useful and useful now! I remember when I was just born, it was just something that every old uncle and aunties drank so as for fun but now, as the years passed, more and more people drink coffee not for their taste but also their effect and the age of people drinking it is also decreasing. And now, It had one more good effect which can make coffee more popular and ‘useful’ as this effect was here long ago but it was just that technologies last time was not strong enough to detect this kind of things. Science indeed changes as time passes, with the introduction of newer and newer technologies.
Bandages that could bite back
The human body has a natural block to keep out bacteria that would cause infections: skin. But when the skin gets burned, it’s not only painful; it’s bad for the body. Burned skin cannot keep the bacteria out, so infections are common. That’s why doctors who treat burn victims have to look out for the slightest sign of dangerous infection.
Doctors often wrap burns in bandages for protection, but a recent study shows that a new kind of bandage can actually fight infection. Better yet, this new bandage can use the harmful bacteria against themselves — in other words, the infection-causing organisms cause their own deaths.
Toby Jenkins, a scientist at the University of Bath in England, worked on the study. Jenkins and his colleagues developed a material that contains tiny capsules. But these carefully designed packets aren’t what they seem: To a bacterium, these capsules look like cells just waiting to be invaded. What the little invaders don’t know, however, is that the capsules contain antibiotics, which are chemical compounds that can kill bacteria on contact.
The bacteria attack the cells by releasing toxins, or poisons. But when the bacteria attack the capsules, the capsules fight back — by releasing antibiotics that knock out any nearby bacteria.
It’s an unusual idea — using bacteria against themselves. Jenkins and the other scientists tested the material on two types of harmful bacteria. One was a type ofStaphylococcus bacteria; the other was a type of Pseudomonas bacteria. When researchers placed scraps of the new material in a Petri dish with the bacteria, the bacteria barely grew at all, this is unusual.
This observation led the researchers to believe that the bacteria had attacked the fabric, and that the antibiotics had been released — which kept the bacteria from growing.
The scientists want the bandages to work specifically against dangerous bacteria, so they also tested the fabric on a harmless type of E. coli bacteria. When the scrap of fabric was placed in a Petri dish with E. coli, the bacteria grew quickly — showing that the trap didn’t fool the harmless bacteria.
The harmful bacteria probably released toxins that burst the capsules open, while the harmless E. coli left the capsules alone.
This early experiment shows that the material can selectively kill dangerous bacteria, but it’s too early to start using the material in hospitals.
“This is a nice approach and they’ve shown in principle that it works,” Christopher Batich, a biomedical engineer at the University of Florida in Gainesville, toldScience News. Batich did not work on the study. While he’s excited about the results, he added that the real world is more complicated than this experiment. “You’d have to work with real bacteria and real wounds to see if it makes a difference,” he says.
Jenkins and his colleagues are back at work improving the healing fabric. In the not-so-distant future, this kind of antibacterial bandage may move from the laboratory to the hospital bed — and give burn victims a fighting chance against infection.
What is the news talking about:
It is about the new invention which improves the original bandage. This invention is first sparked by the saying “curing poison with poison” and hence, this invention used the bacteria which is a metaphor of the poison to counter the bacteria by deflecting the wave of bacteria using antibiotics. Even though this is a good step ahead, the experimenters were still not satisfied and it is said that they will most probably introduce this technique into operations and other places.
My opinion:
Wow, indeed science is always in our lives. It not only helps us detect things that had happened in the past, it also helped us improve things now that we had been using for years. However, one thing that I am curious is that how does this change anything. Does this change the speed of recovered? If not, I really wonders if this way is really needed since it can do the same thing but extra things are needed but still, a good effort to think and invent this kind of things!
Afraid of its own fishy reflection
Male cichlids are mainly freshwater fish that may go after other fish who dare cross their path. A male cichlid will even lunge if that “other fish” happens to be himself: When some types of these cichlids see their own reflections in a mirror, they respond as aggressively as when they encounter a real fish opponent.A new study suggests that even though these two situations may look the same, a fish’s brain actually reacts differently in each case. Researchers from Stanford University recently studied male cichlids that fight their own reflections. The team observed that the part of the brain associated with fear and other negative emotions becomes active when the fish fight their mirror images.
Julie K. Desjardins, one of the scientists who worked on the study, says it’s not clear whether the research is finding “fear”— that is, the scientists are not sure that the fish are afraid of themselves. Even if it’s not fear, the fish is having a negative response, something besides the aggression it usually shows toward another fish, she told Science News.
The study by Desjardins and Russell Fernald, her colleague at Stanford, is the first to show that a fish’s brain reacts differently when the fish sees its own reflection. That doesn’t mean, however, that the fish recognizes itself.
Scientists use mirrors to try to study the consciousness of animals. Previous studies have shown that great apes, elephants, dolphins and magpies (a type of bird) look into a mirror and know they see themselves, Diana Reiss told Science News. Reiss is a scientist at Hunter College in New York City who tries to understand animal cognition, or how animals think. She says not every animal knows its mirror self — monkeys and fish, for example, don’t seem to recognize themselves in the mirror.
In the new study, Desjardins and Fernald did not observe a difference in the behaviors of fish going after other fish compared with fish going after their own reflections. And when the scientists looked at hormones in the fish, they didn’t see a difference. But when they looked in the fish’s brain, using a technique called immediate early gene (IEG) expression, they found a difference.
With this technique, the scientists watched particular genes in the fish that were associated with particular regions of the brain. Measuring IEG helped the scientists to determine which areas of the brain were more active than others. “It’s a kind of fishy MRI,” Desjardins told Science News. MRI stands for magnetic resonance imaging, a tool that gives scientists an idea of what’s going on inside the brain.
When a fish went after its own reflection, the scientists found that the fish brain was especially active in a region similar to the amygdala. In human beings and other animals, the amygdala is associated with fear and other negative emotions.
When the male cichlids went after other fish, they didn’t have the same activity in their amygdala regions — showing that their brains reacted differently when they looked themselves in the fishy face.
Using IEG expression to study fishy fear is new and unusual, but some older studies have shown similar results in other animals. Monkeys, for example, have not been shown to recognize themselves — but they do act differently around their own reflections than they do around other monkeys.
This experiment shows how mirrors can be used to study brain activity, even for animals that don’t recognize themselves.
What is this news talking about:
This news is talking about what happens to some animals when they see their own reflection but it focus mainly on the fishes. It says that the experimenters were at first trying to find if cichlids were afraid of their own reflection but they were unable to have any results. Hence, they decided to use IEG to find the activities in their brains when they see their reflection to see the results. As a result, they found out that the brains acted differently when they see their own reflection and when they did this experiment on other animals such as monkey, no change was spotted. Hence, it is hard to define if ‘fear’ was there at all.
My opinion:
So, this science news tells us that the real reason for the reaction of animals when they met their own reflection. The difference in the activities of the brain when meeting their own reflection, does it shows that the mentality of different animals? Does it really meant that if the activities of the brain changed, it meant that the animal is wise and is able to detect and digest what It seen but when the animal does not reacts, like the monkey, does it meant that they are ‘stupid’ animals but monkey is said to be a highly curious and smart animal.
Orange Peels, Newspapers May Lead to Cheaper, Cleaner Ethanol Fuel
University of Central Florida professor Henry Daniell has developed a groundbreaking way to produce ethanol from waste products such as orange peels and newspapers. His approach is greener and less expensive than the current methods available to run vehicles on cleaner fuel -- and his goal is to relegate gasoline to a secondary fuel.Daniell's breakthrough can be applied to several non-food products throughout the United States, including sugarcane, switchgrass and straw.
"This could be a turning point where vehicles could use this fuel as the norm for protecting our air and environment for future generations," he said.
Daniell's technique -- developed with U.S. Department of Agriculture funding -- uses plant-derived enzyme cocktails to break down orange peels and other waste materials into sugar, which is then fermented into ethanol.
Corn starch now is fermented and converted into ethanol. But ethanol derived from corn produces more greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline does. Ethanol created using Daniell's approach produces much lower greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline or electricity.
There's also an abundance of waste products that could be used without reducing the world's food supply or driving up food prices. In Florida alone, discarded orange peels could create about 200 million gallons of ethanol each year, Daniell said.
More research is needed before Daniell's findings, published this month in Plant Biotechnology Journal, can move from his laboratory to the market. But other scientists conducting research in biofuels describe the early results as promising.
"Dr. Henry Daniell's team's success in producing a combination of several cell wall degrading enzymes in plants using chloroplast transgenesis is a great achievement," said Mariam Sticklen, a professor of crop and soil sciences at Michigan State University. In 2008, she received international media attention for her research looking at an enzyme in a cow's stomach that could help turn corn plants into fuel.
Daniell said no company in the world can produce cellulosic ethanol -- ethanol that comes from wood or the non-edible parts of plants.
Depending on the waste product used, a specific combination or "cocktail" of more than 10 enzymes is needed to change the biomass into sugar and eventually ethanol. Orange peels need more of the pectinase enzyme, while wood waste requires more of the xylanase enzyme. All of the enzymes Daniell's team uses are found in nature, created by a range of microbial species, including bacteria and fungi.
Daniell's team cloned genes from wood-rotting fungi or bacteria and produced enzymes in tobacco plants. Producing these enzymes in tobacco instead of manufacturing synthetic versions could reduce the cost of production by a thousand times, which should significantly reduce the cost of making ethanol, Daniell said.
Tobacco was chosen as an ideal system for enzyme production for several reasons. It is not a food crop, it produces large amounts of energy per acre and an alternate use could potentially decrease its use for smoking.
Daniell's team includes Dheeraj Verma, Anderson Kanagaraj, Shuangxia Jin, Nameirakpam Singh and Pappachan E. Kolattukudy in the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences at UCF's College of Medicine. Genes for the pectinase enzyme were cloned in Kolattukudy's laboratory.
What is this news talking about:
This piece of news is talking about a professor discovering a way to produce ethanol from waste products such as orange peels and newspapers. Other non-food products were also in his list of convertible items. The main point is also that the process is cheap and green. This is really a good thing as at the same time of reducing the world's rubbish, it is also producing much lower greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline or elecricity.
My opinion:
I fell that this breakthrough is really good as its cheap and most importantly, environmentally friendly! It does not only help to prevent us from burning coal to produce fuels which cause global warming, it also helps us to reduce the garbage we dispose of since orange skin contributes to about 200 million gallons of garbage each year. Also it only uses materials which are cheap or you can even find from garbage bin unlike other way which has to use expensive materials and also sophisticated way to create the fuels. However, the use of these fuel in car still produces gas. The scientist may consider creating fuels which does not produce gas when used in cars or at least, produce minimum gas.But nevertheless, this finding still helps to reduce the air pollution.
Attacking Cancer Cells With Hydrogel Nanoparticles
Many cancers are characterized by an over abundance of epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR). When the EGFR level in a cell is elevated it tells the cell to replicate at a rapid rate. It also turns down apoptosis, or programmed cell death."With our technique we're inhibiting EGFR's growth, with small interfering RNA. And by inhibiting it's growth, we're increasing the cells's apoptotic function. If we hit the cell with chemotherapy at the same time, we should be able to kill the cancer cells more effectively," said John McDonald, professor at the School of Biology at Georgia Tech and chief research scientist at the Ovarian Cancer Institute.
Small interfering RNA is good at shutting down EGFR production, but once inside the cell siRNA has a limited life span. Keeping it protected inside the hydrogel nanoparticles allows them to get into the cancer cell safely and acts as a protective barrier around them. The hydrogel releases only a small amount of siRNA at a time, ensuring that while some are out in the cancer cell doing their job, reinforcements are held safely inside the nanoparticle until it's time to do their job.
"It's like a Trojan horse," said L. Andrew Lyon, professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech. "We've decorated the surface of these hydrogels with a ligand that tricks the cancer cell into taking it up. Once inside, the particles have a slow release profile that leaks out the siRNA over a timescale of days, allowing it to have a therapeutic effect."
Cells use the messenger RNA (mRNA) to generate proteins, which help to keep the cell growing. Once the siRNA enters the cell, it binds to the mRNA and recruits proteins that attack the siRNA-mRNA complex. But the cancer cell's not finished; it keeps generating proteins, so without a continuous supply of siRNA, the cell recovers. Using the hydrogel to slowly release the siRNA allows it to keep up a sustained attack so that it can continue to interrupt the production of proteins.
"We've shown that you can get knock down out to a few days time frame, which could present a clinical window to come in and do multiple treatments in a combination chemotherapy approach," said Lyon.
"The fact that this system is releasing the siRNA slowly, without giving the cell time to immediately recover, gives us much better efficiency at killing the cancer cells with chemotherapy," added McDonald.
Previous techniques have involved using antibodies to knock down the proteins.
"But oftentimes, a mutation may arise in the targeted gene such that the antibody will no longer have the effect it once did, thereby increasing the chance for recurrence," said McDonald.
The team used hydrogels because they're non-toxic, have a relatively slow release rate, and can survive in the body long enough to reach their target.
"It's a well-defined architecture that you're using the intrinsic porosity of that material to load things into, and since our particles are about 98 percent water by volume, there's plenty of internal volume in which to load things," said Lyon.
Currently, the tests have been shown to work in vitro, but the team will be initiating tests in vivo shortly.
What is this news talking about:
A breakthrough had been dectected to be able to solve cancer with much safer and easier ways. The experimenter used the characteristic of the cancer cells and the new system that he created. This new system would then strengthen the cell, prevent the attack of cells by the cancer cells and also even if the cell is damaged by the cancer, the system will ambush the cancer cells and provide proteins to the cell, helping the cell recover.
My opinion:
I feel that this breakthrough is a good thing used fr curing cancers. As many people know, cancer is a deadly disease and in the past, the only way of solving the problem is to have surgery which is risky. But now, with this advanced way of killing the bad cell in the body, it is not only not dangerous, if may be even effective than the previous ways of curing cancers. However, the cell which is inputed into cancer patients can only last for a short while and may not be able to clear the cancer very quickly.Also,like most cure, it is not 100% successful. I hope that they may experiment more and find out a cure which can last longer and also heighten the possibility of clearing the cancer.
Dreaming makes perfect
Dreams can be familiar and strange, fantastical or boring. No one knows for certain why people dream, but some dreams might be connected to the mental processes that help us learn. In a recent study, scientists found a connection between nap-time dreams and better memory in people who were learning a new skill.
So perhaps one way to learn something new is to practice, practice, practice — and then sleep on it. (Warning: This research still doesn’t provide an excuse for falling asleep during class.)
“I was startled by this finding,” Robert Stickgold told Science News. He is a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School who worked on the study. Neuroscience is the study of how the brain and nervous system work, and cognitive studies look at how people learn and reason. So a cognitive neuroscientist may study the brain processes that help people learn.
In the study, 99 college students between the ages of 18 and 30 each spent an hour on a computer, trying to get through a virtual maze. The maze was difficult, and the study participants had to start in a different place each time they tried — making it even more difficult. They were also told to find a particular picture of a tree and remember where it was.
For the first 90 minutes of a five-hour break, half of the participants stayed awake and half were told to take a short nap. Participants who stayed awake were asked to describe their thoughts. Participants who took a nap were asked about their dreams before sleep and after sleep — and they were awakened within a minute of sleep to describe their dreams.
Stickgold and his colleagues wanted to know about NREM, or non-REM sleep. REM stands for “rapid eye movement,” which is what happens during REM sleep. This period of sleep often brings bizarre dreams to a sleeper, although dreams can happen in both modes of sleep. Stickgold wanted to know what people were dreaming about when their eyes weren’t moving, during NREM sleep. In other studies, scientists had found a connection between NREM brain activity and learning ability in rats and in people.
Four of the 50 people who slept said their dreams were connected to the maze. Some dreamed about the music that had been playing when they were working; others said they dreamed about seeing people in the maze. When these four people tried the computer maze again, they were able to find the tree faster than before their naps.
Stickgold suggests the dream itself doesn’t help a person learn — it’s the other way around. He suspects that the dream was caused by the brain processes associated with learning.
All four of the people who dreamed about the task had done poorly the first time, which makes Stickgold wonder if the NREM dreams show up when a person finds a new task particularly difficult. People who had other dreams, or people who didn’t take a nap, didn’t show the same improvement.
What is this news talking about:
This poem is actually talking about the ability to memorize something better after having a nap immediately after memorizing something. A experiment was conducted and the result was that the people who slept had their dreams about the question they were asked and hence were able to memorize them easily but for those who did not sleep, they were unable to do the same things but however a minority of 4 were still about to do so. But, this shows that taking a nap after meeting a hard question or needing to memorize something is going to help eases the job.
My opinion:
Ha, now I can have a excuse to sleep at class!! If I have a afternoon nap and I can improve my memory in class, it meant that I will do even better than rather listening to the teacher nag. No wonder my friends who often slept in class did better in tests than me! But, I do not think that this thing works for everyone. For some people, their memories are better and a nap is not needed and while for some other people, their memories are weak and nothing is going to improve it.
Holes in Martian moon mystery
The Martian moon Phobos is cratered, lumpy and about 16.8 miles long, or 3 miles longer than the island of Manhattan. According to a recent study, the moon is also unusually light. Planetary scientists found that Phobos is probably not a solid object, and that as much as 30 percent of the moon’s interior may be empty space.
That doesn’t mean that Phobos is an empty shell where we could, say, set up a rest stop for spaceships on their way to the outer planets. But the new finding probably does mean that Phobos was not an asteroid that got caught in Mars’ gravity as it floated by the planet.
Phobos is the larger of Mars’ two moons, and astronomers have had many ideas about where it came from. Previous studies have suggested that Phobos was an asteroid. Other studies suggest the moon formed from bits of Martian rock that were sent into space after a giant object, like an asteroid, crashed in Mars. The new study suggests that neither of these ideas is completely correct. The truth might be some combination of the two.
Scientists may never know how Phobos came to be a Martian satellite, but the new study may help eliminate some possibilities, Tom Andert told Science News. Andert, who worked on the new study, is a planetary geophysicist at the University of the German Armed Forces in Munich. A planetary geophysicist is a scientist who studies physical properties, such as rocks and appearance, to understand more about celestial bodies such as planets and moons.
Andert and his colleagues were able to study Phobos thanks to theMars Express, a spacecraft that orbits Mars and takes measurements. That spacecraft left Earth in 2003 and is a project by the European Space Agency, or ESA. In March, Mars Express flew closer to Phobos than any spacecraft ever had before, ESA reports.
The scientists wanted to learn the density of Phobos. Density measures how close together, on average, are the atoms in an object. If two objects are the same size but have different densities, the denser object will have more mass — which means it will feel heavier when you’re holding it on Earth. Density is found by dividing mass by volume. Since the scientists already had a good idea of the volume of Phobos, they just had to find its mass in order to figure out its density.
They made their mass measurements by studying the gravitational force of Phobos. Gravity is an attractive force, which means anything with mass attracts anything else with mass. (A human body, for example, gravitationally attracts every other human body. Earth attracts those human bodies to it even more.) The more mass an object has, the stronger its gravitational force. Since a large body like the Earth has a lot of mass, it has a strong gravitational force — strong enough to hold people on its surface and the Moon in orbit.
When Mars Express flew close to Phobos, the small moon’s gravity attracted the spacecraft. By studying changes in the motion of Mars Express, the scientists were able to estimate the gravitational tug of Phobos. Once they knew the strength of its gravity, they could find its mass.
They found that Phobos has a density of about 1.87 grams per cubic centimeter. The rocks in the crust of Mars, for comparison, are much denser: about 3 grams per cubic centimeter. This difference suggests that Phobos is not made of rocks from the surface of Mars.
Some asteroids have densities of about 1.87 grams per cubic centimeter, but Andert says that those asteroids would be broken apart by Mars’ gravity — a fact that probably rules out the possibility that Phobos was once a free-floating asteroid.
Some scientists, like Tom Duxbury, don’t mind giving up the idea that Phobos was once an asteroid. “Finally we’re drifting away from the idea that the Martian moons are captured asteroids,” Duxbury told Science News. Duxbury, of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., did not work on the new study but also studies planets. He told Science News that he’s “happy to see that Phobos and Deimos [Mars’ other moon] are getting a lot of attention these days.”
What is this news talking about:
This news is talking about the discovery that the Phobos, a satellite of Mars, is actually hollow in which about 30% of it is actually empty. Other than this, not much was discovered and the rest of the news only described about the natural satellite and some doubts of the scientists about its source.
My opinion:
Ok, another finding about the things in the universe, beyond mother earth. These days, repeating news about the findings of things in space had been released and this meant that we, mankind and finally getting closer and closer to be able to fully understand the universe more. Although this news are just small pieces of unimportant news, who knows one day when all the news were combined together, it might help scientist solve some puzzles that are not able to be solved now. Carry on the jobs astronauts!
SELF-RESEARCH
ALGAE
Some things i am going to cover:
Algae
• A large group of primitive plants with more than 20,000 species
• Is the primary producer
• Produce vitamins and unsaturated fatty acids
• produce hydrogen needed for fuel cells
• Clean the water it is in
• Found in almost every climate and condition existing on earth.
• Grow in fresh water, on the shores of beaches, moist rocks and in soil, snow and ice.
• Green algae grows at the bottom of the sea.
• Brown algae is found in the Gulf Stream and Sargasso Sea.
Diatoms
• More than 100,000 species of diatoms
• Tiniest Algae and is a single cell which makes its own protective shell
• Shapes vary from spheres, rods, and triangles to boxes and others
• Used as insulation and optical image quality
Blue-Green Algae
• Are usually simple one-celled organisms
• Found in the soil and in both fresh and salt water
• Used for weight loss and nutritional supplements
• Used for boosting the immune system and for controlling cholesterol levels
Green Algae
• Formed mainly in fresh water or moist soil
• Some gives water in pond and reservoirs a ‘fishy’ taste and odour
• Help to purify sewage
• Can be treated as food
Red Algae
• Grow mostly in salt water especially in tropical regions
• Vary greatly in structure and appearance and many have beautiful shapes.
• can produce agar which is gel capsule which is also a base for cosmetic.
• Can produce food and water
Brown algae
• More than 1,500 species
• Live along rocky seashores
• Used for cosmetic
• Treated as food
• Used as fertilizer for agriculture crops
Importance of Algae to Land life: Oxygen Level
• Atmosphere on Early Earth,
• dominated by carbon dioxide
• lack of oxygen
• does not support life.
• Blue-green algae and other seaweed
• reduce carbon dioxide level to the current 0.03%
• Increase oxygen level to the current 21%
• Importance of algae to land life: water cycle
• "The cycle of life is intricately tied up with the cycle of water."
-Quote by Jacques Cousteau
• Water is important in supporting life
• Importance of Algae to the Human Civilisation: Fertiliser
• Used as a organic soil fertilizer in place of artificial nitrates
• Example: Maerl, a type of red algae, found on the seabed off the coast of Cornwall
• Importance of Algae to the Human Civilisation : Used as building material
• When Algae dies, they sink to the ocean floor and, over millions of years, get crushed into limestone
Bacteria
A few things I am going to cover:
1. What are Bacteria?
Bacteria are microscopic organisms whose single cells have neither a membrane-bounded nucleus nor other membrane-bounded organelles like mitochondria and chloroplasts. Another group of microbes, the archaea, meet these criteria but are so different from the bacteria in other ways that they must have had a long, independent evolutionary history since close to the dawn of life. In fact, there is considerable evidence that you are more closely related to the archaea than they are to the Bacteria!
2. Reproduction of Bacteria
Bacteria carry out reproduction by cell division. Bacteria grow to a fixed size and then reproduce through binary fission, a form of asexual reproduction. Under some conditions, bacteria can grow and divide extremely rapidly, and bacterial populations can double as quickly as every 9.8 minutes. In cell division, two identical clone daughter cells are produced. Some bacteria, while still reproducing asexually, form more complex reproductive structures that help disperse the newly formed daughter cells.
3. Growth of Bacteria
Bacterial growth follows three phases. When a population of bacteria first enter a high-nutrient environment that allows growth, the cells need to adapt to their new environment. The first phase of growth is the lag phase, a period of slow growth when the cells are adapting to the high-nutrient environment and preparing for fast growth. The lag phase has high biosynthesis rates, as proteins necessary for rapid growth are produced. The second phase of growth is the logarithmic phase (log phase), also known as the exponential phase. The log phase is marked by rapid exponential growth. The rate at which cells grow during this phase is known as the growth rate (k), and the time it takes the cells to double is known as the generation time (g). During log phase, nutrients are metabolised at maximum speed until one of the nutrients is depleted and starts limiting growth. The final phase of growth is the stationary phase and is caused by depleted nutrients. The cells reduce their metabolic activity and consume non-essential cellular proteins. The stationary phase is a transition from rapid growth to a stress response state and there is increased expression of genes involved in DNA repair, antioxidant metabolism and nutrient transport.
4. Genetic of Bacteria
Most bacteria have a single circular chromosome that can range in size from only 160,000 base pairs in the endosymbiotic bacteria Candidatus Carsonella ruddii, to 12,200,000 base pairs in the soil-dwelling bacteria Sorangium cellulosum. Spirochaetes of the genus Borrelia are a notable exception to this arrangement, with bacteria such as Borrelia burgdorferi, the cause of Lyme disease, containing a single linear chromosome. The genes in bacterial genomes are usually a single continuous stretch of DNA and although several different types of introns do exist in bacteria, these are much rarer than in eukaryotes.
Bioluminescence
We will be covering:
1. What is Bioluminescence
Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism. Its name is a hybrid word, originating from the Greek bios for "living" and the Latin lumen "light". Bioluminescence is a naturally occurring form of chemiluminescence where energy is released by a chemical reaction in the form of light emission. Fireflies, anglerfish, and other creatures produce the chemicals luciferin (a pigment) and luciferase (an enzyme). The luceferin reacts with oxygen to create light. The luciferase acts as a catalyst to speed up the reaction, which is sometimes mediated by cofactors such as calcium ions or ATP. The chemical reaction can occur either inside or outside the cell. In bacteria, the expression of genes related to bioluminescence is controlled by an operon called the Lux operon. Based on its diversity and phylogenetic distribution, it is estimated that bioluminescence has arisen independently as many as 30 times in the course of evolution.
2. Characteristic of Bioluminescence
Bioluminescence is a form of luminescence, or "cold light" emission; less than 20% of the light generates thermal radiation. It should not be confused with fluorescence, phosphorescence or refraction of light.
Ninety percent of deep-sea marine lives are estimated to produce bioluminescence in one form or another. Most marine light-emission belongs in the blue and green light spectrum, the wavelengths that can transmit through the seawater most easily. However, certain loose-jawed fish emit red and infrared light and the genus Tomopteris emits yellow bioluminescence.
Non-marine bioluminescence is less widely distributed, but a larger variety in colours is seen. The two best-known forms of land bioluminescence are fireflies and glow worms. Other insects, insect larvae, annelids,arachnids and even species of fungi have been noted to possess bioluminescent abilities.
3. Proposed applications of engineered bioluminescence
Some proposed applications of engineered bioluminescence include: