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Sugar in space ?

Space

Astronomers discover sugar in space

Astronomers have made a sweet discovery 400 light years away. They found sugar in the gas surrounding a star similar to the Earth's own sun.

The sugar researchers found is likely to neither taste sweet nor be packed into a cube. But 400 light years away from Earth in the billowing clouds of gas around a forming star, researchers led by Jes Jorgensen from Copenhagen's Niels Bohr Institute have found the substance loathed by dentists worldwide: sugar molecules.
"In the disc of gas and dust surrounding this newly formed star, we found glycolaldehyde, which is a simple form of sugar, not much different to the sugar we put in coffee," Jes Jorgensen said in a statement.
Chemical compounds reveal themselves through the emission of a specific light known as luminescence. This phenomenon is apparent on Earth in objects such as common street lights, which cast a yellow glow because of sodium.
In the sugar found near the star, which has a mass similar to the sun's and is known as IRAS 16293-2422, is similar to a white, odorless powder or non-dairy creamer. The presence of the sugar is exciting to astronomers because the organic molecule may be an essential "building block" to form life.
"For us it was interesting to see where these ingredients come from," said Markus Pössel of the European Southern Observatory. "This is the first demonstration of this simple form of sugar in the gas of a young star. We now know that glycolaldehyde may be present already during the formation of a planet."

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Balut - egg with Duck Fetuses eating contest

aleginowayne

We reported a couple of weeks ago that the Filipino restaurant Maharlika would be holding a duck-fetus-eating contest. The delicacy is called "balut," and the title of New York City's balut-eating champion has been clinched by Wayne Aleginio, who ate 18 of the fetuses. Yes, you read that right: 18 duck fetuses. The best part? This guy did it in five minutes, and he had never even eaten a balut before.

"This contest was my first experience with balut, and I didn't really get the full taste of it because I was just shoving it into my mouth and eating it as fast as possible," he told GMA News. "I did not have a tummy ache afterwards; actually, I was still hungry."

Unprotected Sex Makes A Happy Women

While semen has recently been found to stimulate women's ovulation cycle, even if she is menstruating, now experts state that "mood-altering chemicals" in semen may improve a women's mental health if ingested or inserted: Yes, we are talking about oral sex.

Forget for a second that women willing to engage in oral sex are already 'a-head' of the game: Women who are sexually repressed are less emotionally and romantically stable than women with healthy sexual appetites.

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By this I do not refer to women who do not engage in sexual behaviors, rather women who are not psychologically open to and knowledgeable about sex. Women who are brought up in ideologies that forbid extramarital intercourse are not necessarily sexually repressed. If you are not willing to joke about sex, refuse to listen to stories about it, read textbook descriptions on the act or if your lips tremble around the word "vagina," then you, my shut-in friend, might be sexually repressed.

This study is discussing women who freely and willingly engage in fellatio, suggesting that the willingness stems from the semen which physically makes them happier.

According to the Times of India, a study conducted by researchers at the State University of New York shows that,

"seminal fluid contains chemicals that elevates mood, increases affection, induces sleep and also contains at least three anti-depressants," Such as cortisol, which is known to increase affection, estrone, and oxytocin, which elevates mood, melatonin (a sleep-inducing agent), and even serotonin, a naturally produced neurotransmitter that produces the feeling of "happiness."

(Photo : Wikicommons)
The Art of Happiness

The study has also shown that women who have more unprotected sex (Note: This author does not condone or advise sex without proper protection) are in better moods and even perform better on cognitive tests.

Researchers conducted a practical experiment via survey where questions were asked about the sex lives of 293 females and the state of their mental health.

The most striking finds were that, even after adjusting for frequency of sexual intercourse,

"women who engaged in sex and "never" used condoms showed significantly fewer depressive symptoms than did those who "usually" or "always" used condoms---Importantly, these chronically condom-less, sexually active women also evidenced fewer depressive symptoms than did those who abstained from sex altogether," as reported Times of India.

 

Martian rock composition coming soon .

This artist's concept depicts the rover Curiosity, of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, as it uses its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument to investigate the composition of a rock surface. ChemCam fires laser pulses at a target and views the resulting spark with a telescope and spectrometers to identify chemical elements. The laser is actually in an invisible infrared wavelength, but is shown here as visible red light for purposes of illustration.
Image by: HANDOUT/ REUTERS / REUTERS

 

The robotic science lab aimed its laser beam at the fist-sized stone nearby and shot the rock with 30 pulses over a 10-second period, NASA said in a statement issued from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles.
Each pulse delivers more than 1 million watts of energy for about five one-billionths of a second, vaporizing a pinhead-sized bit of the rock to create a tiny spark, which is analyzed by a small telescope mounted on the instrument.
The ionized glow, which can be observed and recorded from up to 25 feet (7 meters) away, is then split into its component wavelengths by three spectrometers that give scientists information about the chemical makeup of the target rock.
The combined system, called the Chemistry-and-Camera instrument, or ChemCam, is capable of discerning more than 6000 different wavelengths in the ultraviolet, infrared and visible light spectrum and is designed to take about 14000 measurements throughout Curiosity’s Mars mission.
The purpose of Sunday’s initial use of the laser, conducted at roughly 3 a.m. Pacific time (1100 GMT), was as “target practice” for the instrument. But scientists will examine the data they receive to determine composition of the rock, which they dubbed “Coronation,” NASA said.
“We got a great spectrum of Coronation — lots of signal,” said ChemCam principal investigator Roger Wiens of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the instrument was developed. “After eight years of building the instrument, it’s payoff time.”
Curiosity, a one-ton, six-wheeled vehicle the size of a compact car, landed inside a vast, ancient impact crater near Mars’ equator on Aug. 6 after an eight-month, 354-million-mile voyage through space. Its two-year mission is aimed at determining whether or not the planet most like Earth could have hosted microbial life.
The rover’s primary target is Mount Sharp, a towering mound of layered rock rising from the floor of Gale Crater. But mission controllers are gradually checking out Curiosity’s sophisticated array of instruments before sending it on its first road trip across the Martian landscape.
The $2,5 billion Curiosity project marks NASA’s first astrobiology mission since the Viking probes to Mars during the 1970s and the most advanced robotic science lab sent to another world.
The technique employed by ChemCam has been used to examine the composition of materials in other extreme environments, such as inside nuclear reactors and on the sea floor.
The technology also has experimental applications in environmental monitoring and cancer detection. But Sunday’s exercise, conducted during Curiosity’s 13th full day on Mars, was the first use in interplanetary exploration, NASA said.
Before Curiosity embarks on its 4,3-mile (7-km) trek to the foot of Mount Sharp, a journey that could take six months, mission controllers plan to send it out on a shorter jaunt to a spot 1600 feet (500 meters) from its landing site.

DARPA: Color-changing robots - chameleon-like soft robot

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has released information about a new, chameleon-like soft robot that has a range of capabilities and can be produced at a very low cost.  DARPA hopes the new “hiding in plain sight” robot will be used by various defense agencies for many types of missions.
Researchers led by Drs. George Whitesides and Stephen Morin at Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering successfully created the robot under DARPA’s Maximum Mobility and Manipulation (M3) program.  The robot can walk on its own, glow, carry certain liquids, and change color, apparent shape and temperature.
DARPA’s press release further explained the new soft robot’s capabilities: “What DARPA has achieved with silicone-based soft robots is development of a very low cost manufacturing method that uses silicone molds. By introducing narrow channels into the molds through which air and various types of fluids can be pumped, a robot can be made to change its color, contrast, apparent shape and temperature to blend with its environment, glow through chemiluminescence, and most importantly, achieve actuation, or movement, through pneumatic pressurization and inflation of the channels.  The combination of low cost and increased capabilities means DARPA has removed one of the major obstacles to greater DoD adoption of robot technology.”

DARPA’s report on the chameleon-lik robot comes about one week after another DARPA-financed robot project was announced, the creation of a soft, autonomous robot called a “Meshworm” that resembles an Earthworm.
Gill Pratt, the DARPA program manager for M3, put the achievement in context. “DARPA is developing a suite of robots that draw inspiration from the ingenuity and efficiency of nature. For defense applications, ingenuity and efficiency are not enough—robotic systems must also be cost effective,” he said. “This novel robot is a significant advance towards achieving all three goals.”
Inside DARPA’s new robot, the microfluidic networks used for camouflage or display are contained in thin silicone sheets referred to as color layers.  Various heated or cooled dye, chemiluminescent and fluorescent solutions and water can be pumped through the color layers to adjust temperature and appearance.
With its adaptive camouflage and ability to squeeze through tight spaces, the “hiding in plain sight” robot will naturally make a good tool for surveillance in covert governmental operations or regular security surveillance.  Depending on the extent of its ability to carry solid objects, any video equipment attached will be assisted by the glow of the robot.  For covert operations, several robots could also be dropped in a darkened area to create mobile landing zones for aircraft.
The military could make use of the robots ability to transport “various types” of liquid, even some liquids that are temperature-sensitive given that the robot can control temperature to a certain extent.  More nefarious uses of the robot might include carrying computer system hacking equipment, mines, or chemical or biological weapons.
The robot’s softness and ability to glow and change temperatures could also make it a less invasive way of watching wild life closely.  Its pliability and glow make it useful for exploring hard to reach places, perhaps making it a useful search and rescue tool, such as in collapsed mines or buildings.
Compared with using traditional, non-soft robots, DARPA believes that the ease and low expense of producing soft robots, coupled with their extraordinary capabilities, will make them able to assist in the execution of military operations far more effectively across a far greater range of missions and at a cheaper cost for the U.S. Department of Defense.  The new developments were reported in the August 17 issue of Science Magazine.

 

X-51A - Waverider aircraft - US army

LOS ANGELES - The US military conducted an unmanned test flight of its hypersonic Waverider aircraft, designed to move at six times the speed of sound using technology that bridges the gap between planes and rocketships, a military official said.
A B-52 bomber launched the remotely monitored, nearly wingless experimental aircraft, officially known as the X-51A, between 10 am and 11 am (1700 and 1800 GMT), John Haire, a spokesman for the 412th test wing at Edwards Air Force Base in California, said in a statement.
The plan had been to conduct the test flight over the Pacific Ocean after a staging at Edwards, said Deborah VanNierop, a spokeswoman for Boeing Co, which was involved in constructing the craft, said in a statement.
The Waverider is designed to reach speeds of Mach 6 or above, fast enough to zoom from New York to London in less than an hour. But rather than commercial air travel, the military has its eye on a more readily achievable application - using it to develop high-speed cruise missiles.
The X-51A was launched off the coast of California near Naval Air Station Point Mugu, which is northwest of Los Angeles, Haire said. It flew north over the Pacific through a range that is designed for test flights.
“The X-51 is not retrievable, in other words once you fly it, it’s going to end up in the ocean,” Haire said.
The aircraft is known as the Waverider because it stays airborne, in part, with lift generated by the shock waves of its own flight.
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne designed the X-51A’s “scramject” engine, which uses the forward motion of the craft to compress air for fuel combustion, according to a description of the project from the military. After being dropped from the B-52, a solid-rocket booster is used in the initial phase of the plane’s flight to bring it up to speeds that can allow its scramjet engine to take over, by inhaling air through the craft’s forward momentum.

Mutated butterflies - caused by nuclear disaster.

Joji Otaki / EPA

This handout photo, released Tuesday, shows a healthy adult pale grass blue butterfly (top) and a mutated variety (bottom). Severe mutations were found in butterflies collected near Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

By Arata Yamamato, NBC News

TOKYO -- Researchers in Japan have found signs of mutation in butterflies, signaling one of the first indications of change to the local ecosystem as a result of last year's nuclear accident in Fukushima, according to one of the first studies on the genetic effects of the incident.
Joji Otaki from the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, who led the research, collected 144 commonly-found pale grass blue butterflies two months after the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.
Initial results indicated that roughly 12 percent of the butterflies showed signs of abnormalities, such as disfigurement in their antennas, smaller-sized wings, change in color patterns and indented eyes, Otaki said.
Even more alarming, when he collected another 238 samples six months later he found that those abnormalities had increased to 28 percent and the mutations had doubled to 52 percent in their offspring.