New method paves way for better dietary zinc test

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Unlocking ways to monitor a key nutrient, Cornell research unveils a new method to test for zinc deficiency, a vital measurement that has posed problems for doctors and scientists. After iron, zinc is the most abundant trace mineral in human cells, playing a role in immunity, protein synthesis and wound healing. Dietary zinc deficiency affects one-quarter of the world’s population, so accurate and sensitive measurements are needed. Measuring the micronutrient is complex because cells efficiently export zinc, which can be toxic. The study, published March 20 in the journal Nutrients and led by first author Spenser Reed ’14, uses ratios between two red blood cell fatty acids. One of those fatty acids, linoleic acid, requires a zinc-dependent enzyme to produce the second fatty acid, dihomo-gamma-linolenic acid (DGLA). In other words, without zinc, DGLA doesn’t get made. By measuring the abundance of linoleic acid relative to DGLA, and vice versa – the ratio of linoleic acid to DGLA becomes higher as zinc deficiency increases – the researchers have identified a potentially sensitive biomarker for testing the body’s zinc status. “One of the major challenges is to find a parameter that can detect differences between mild zinc deficiency and severe zinc deficiency,

The post New method paves way for better dietary zinc test has been published on Technology Org.

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Bright points in sun's atmosphere mark patterns deep in its interior

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Like a balloon bobbing along in the air while tied to a child's hand, a tracer has been found in the sun's atmosphere to help track the flow of material coursing underneath the sun's surface.

via Science Daily

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Vitamin B3 might have been made in space, delivered to Earth by meteorites

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Ancient Earth might have had an extraterrestrial supply of vitamin B3 delivered by carbon-rich meteorites, according to a new analysis. The result supports a theory that the origin of life may have been assisted by a supply of key molecules created in space and brought to Earth by comet and meteor impacts.

via Science Daily

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Continents may be a key feature of Super-Earths

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Huge Earth-like planets that have both continents and oceans may be better at harboring extraterrestrial life than those that are water-only worlds. A new study gives hope for the possibility that many super-Earth planets orbiting distant stars have exposed continents rather than just water-covered surfaces.



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But when will we see them?

Science Focus

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But when will we see them?
Forgive my hesitation to get excited... 'though I must admit this seems a lot closer than other 'breakthroughs' in graphene.

Now we just need a similar breakthrough in solar cells and we'll be able to deal a big blow against global warming.

So hurry up and get them to market!

  #science #graphene  

Electric Vehicles to be Charged 1,000 Times Faster

 
original post: https://plus.google.com/116000959328274308893/posts/9yDedYsnJXc
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How ants use 'death signals' to scavenge for food

Science Focus

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The desert ant ‪Cataglyphis‬ fortis doesn't have it easy when it comes to grabbing a bite to eat.

The ants live as scavengers, picking what they can from dead insects and arachnids on the punishing salt pans (a flat area of desert covered with salt and minerals) of the Sahara Desert. Their meals are scattered, unpredictably, in both space and time, and finding them before the desert heat becomes too much to bear seems challenging. But the ants are able find their meals quickly and dash home as soon as they've found one. Now European biologists have figured out how ants are able to find their...

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original post: http://theweek.com/article/index/259714/how-ants-use-death-signals-to-scavenge-for-food
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New “solar thermal fuel” has energy density of lead batteries

Science Focus

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Right now, photovoltaic devices are the cheapest, most efficient way to harvest the energy in sunlight. The problem is that this energy ends up in the form of electricity, which we have difficulty storing in a cost-effective manner. An alternative approach, solar thermal energy, converts solar energy to heat and can use that heat to continue generating power for several hours after the Sun goes down. But that's not enough to make solar an around-the-clock energy source.

Researchers are apparently working on a third option, one that could potentially store energy indefinitely. It goes by the name of "solar thermal fuel," but it's not a fuel in the traditional sense. Rather than breaking apart the fuel molecule through combustion, solar thermal fuels release heat by rearranging bonds within a molecule, leaving all the atoms in place. As a result, they can be recycled repeatedly—in the example that introduced me to solar thermal fuels, a research team ran theirs through more than 2,000 cycles with no loss in performance.

How do you get energy into and out of a molecule without breaking any bonds? In this case, the authors worked with derivatives of a chemical called azobenzene, shown below. The double bond between the two nitrogens forces the remaining bonds into one of two forms: either both of the rings can be on opposite sides of the molecule (top, called the "trans" form) or they can be on the same side (bottom, called "cis").

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original post: http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/fMXY00uIx98/
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Merging Galaxies - The Antennae Galaxies Square Stickers

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space

Merging Galaxies - The Antennae Galaxies Square Stickers

tagged with: envelope sealer, stretch frame, awesome astronomy images, super star clusters, agmcssc, antennae galaxies, merging galaxies, star cluster formation, best hubble photos, ngc4038 ngc4039, dust clouds, new born stars

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A stunning outer space picture featuring two merging galaxies, known as the Antennae Galaxies - NGC4038 and NGC4039. As these galaxies hurtle through each other, billions of new stars are forced to precipitate out of the gas and dust clouds by the bunching and heating that's caused by the massive gravitic interactions. These tend to occur in clusters, the brightest and most condensed of them being known as super star clusters.

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Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration. Acknowledgement: B. Whitmore ( Space Telescope Science Institute) and James Long (ESA/Hubble).

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Name, Orion Nebula, structures of deep space Gift Wrap

Get your out-of-this-world gift wrap here! Perfect for Christmas gifts for anyone who is fascinated by what the universe holds in store for us!

Name, Orion Nebula, structures of deep space Gift Wrap

tagged with: orion nebula detail, sculpted gas clouds, sgcion, stellar winds, sculpting trapezium stars, messier 42, messier 43, star galaxies, outer space, deep space astronomy

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A region within the Orion Nebula showing the sculpting effect that stars can have on any surrounding gas clouds. This glowing region reveals arcs and bubbles formed when stellar winds - streams of charged particles ejected by the nearby Trapezium stars - collide with material.
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image code: sgcion

Image credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

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With Planned Crash, NASA Lunar Mission Comes to End

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The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer slammed into the moon early Friday, ending a successful six-month, $280 million mission.















via New York Times

How mighty Jupiter could have changed Earth's habitability

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Is Jupiter a friendly planet, Earth's enemy, or perhaps both? For decades, scientists have talked about how the giant gas planet keeps some asteroids from striking our small world, while others have pointed out that Jupiter's gravity could send some civilization-shattering asteroids our way.



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Red Moon, Green Beam

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This is not a scene from a sci-fi special effects movie. The green beam of light and red lunar disk are real enough, captured in the early morning hours of April 15. Of course, the reddened lunar disk is easy to explain as the image was taken during this week's total lunar eclipse. Immersed in shadow, the eclipsed Moon reflects the dimmed reddened light of all the sunsets and sunrises filtering around the edges of planet Earth, seen in silhouette from a lunar perspective. But the green beam of light really is a laser. Shot from the 3.5-meter telescope at Apache Point Observatory in southern New Mexico, the beam's path is revealed as Earth's atmosphere scatters some of the intense laser light. The laser's target is the Apollo 15 retroreflector, left on the Moon by the astronauts in 1971. By determining the light travel time delay of the returning laser pulse, the experimental team from UC San Diego is able to measure the Earth-Moon distance to millimeter precision and provide a test of General Relativity, Einstein's theory of gravity. Conducting the lunar laser ranging experiment during a total eclipse uses the Earth like a cosmic light switch. With direct sunlight blocked, the reflector's performance is improved over performance when illuminated by sunlight during a normal Full Moon, an effect fondly known as The Full Moon Curse.

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Horsehead Nebula Wall Decals

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space

Horsehead Nebula Wall Decals

tagged with: horsehead nebula, nebula, dark nebula, constellation, orion, nebulae, universe, space, astronomy, astronomer

The Horsehead Nebula is a dark nebula in the constellation Orion. Image by NASA and ESA.

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In-situ nanoindentation study of phase transformation in magnetic shape memory alloys

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Texas A&M University researchers led by Dr. Xinghang Zhang in the Department of Mechanical Engineering have examined stress induced martensitic phase transformations in magnetic shape memory alloys via in-situ nanoindentation technique.



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Hubble iPad case

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!

Hubble iPad case

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Hubble

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Researchers develop new tool to check cells’ ‘batteries’

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Researchers at U.Va.’s School of Medicine have created a method to illuminate and understand mitochondria in living creatures like never before. Under the microscope, they glow like streetlights, forming tidy rows that follow the striations of muscle tissue. They are mitochondria – the powerhouses of cells – and researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have created a method to illuminate and understand them in living creatures like never before. Not only can the researchers make the mitochondria glow for the microscope, but they also can discern from that fluorescence the mitochondria’s age, their health, even their stress level. And ultimately that glow, in its soft reds and greens, will shed light on human health and a massive array of illnesses, from diabetes to Parkinson’s disease to cancer. “Mitochondrial health is important for physiology and disease. That is well-known,” said researcher Zhen Yan of U.Va.’s Cardiovascular Research Center. “However, the whole field of mitochondrial health is largely unexplored, in large part because of the lack of useful tools. This has hindered the understanding of the importance of mitochondria in disease development. “With this study we have, for the first time, shown that we can use a reporter gene

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Hubble Space Poster

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space

Hubble Space Poster

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Add mattes and frame this poster to suit your decor. Makes a fantastic gift. The images shown below were created by the Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). The Institute has been contracted by NASA to create products and services that return the scientific discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope to the American public.

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Red Supergiant Star V838 Monocerotis Star Stickers

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space

Red Supergiant Star V838 Monocerotis Star Stickers

tagged with: amazing astronomy images, hubble images, monocerotis, supermassive red giant, stars, interstellar dust, swirling dust clouds, monoceros constellation, red supergiant star, fun stickons

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous astronomy picture featuring a distant star, named V838 Monocerotis, in the direction of the constellation of Monoceros on the outer edge of our Milky Way. The image shows the swirls of dust spiralling across trillions of miles of interstellar space, lit mainly from within by a pulse of light from the red supergiant, two years into its journey.

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Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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Name, Deep Space Phenomena Cigar Galaxy, Messier 8 Gift Wrap Paper

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Name, Deep Space Phenomena Cigar Galaxy, Messier 8 Gift Wrap Paper

tagged with: agmet, chandra, messier 82, cigar galaxy, active galaxies, outer space images, deep space photography, stars, hubble astronomy, sky watching

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series Composite of images of the active galaxy Messier 82 from the three Great Observatories: Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and Spitzer Space Telescope. X-ray data recorded by Chandra appears here in blue, infrared light recorded by Spitzer appears in red. Hubble's observation of hydrogen emission appears in orange. Hubble's bluest observation appears in yellow-green.
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Image credit: Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope

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Omega Nebula Wall Graphic

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space

Omega Nebula Wall Graphic

tagged with: omega nebula, swan nebula, checkmark, nebula, lobster nebula, horseshoe nebula, space, universe, astronomy, astromomer

The Omega Nebula, also known as the Swan Nebula, Checkmark Nebula, Lobster Nebula, and the Horseshoe Nebula is an H II region in the constellation Sagittarius. It was discovered by Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in 1745. Charles Messier catalogued it in 1764. It is located in the rich starfields of the Sagittarius area of the Milky Way. Photo by NASA.

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Cygnus Loop Supernova Blast Wave iPad Case

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!

Cygnus Loop Supernova Blast Wave iPad Case

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Cygnus Loop Supernova Blast Wave iPad Case

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