Steps into Space - Commercialisation, Occupation, Colonization: 08/03/15

Monday, 3 August 2015

Out There: The Flip Side of Optimism About Life on Other Planets

more »
For all the recent momentum in the search for life elsewhere, there’s a school of thought that the suns may be setting.

via New York Times

New source of greenhouse gases discovered

original post »

Inconspicuous creatures surprise with a property that is important for our climate: Lichens, mosses and cyanobacteria release large

The post New source of greenhouse gases discovered has been published on Technology Org.

#materials
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Virgo Constellation Hevelius 1690 Aug23 - Sept22 Poster

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

Virgo Constellation Hevelius 1690 Aug23 - Sept22 Poster

tagged with: simple, birthday, zodiac, zodiac sign, astrology, astrological, astronomy, horoscope, virgo, angel, libra, pisces, aries, gemini, taurus, trendy, symbol, design, personal, popular, dad, mom, grandfather, mother, world, symbols, stars, birth sign, sun sign, star sign, sign, signs, astrology symbol, birthday gift, cancer, leo, scorpio, sagittarius, capricorn, aquarius

Introducing a Zazzle marketplace shopping and selling guide where you will find a sampling of Zazzle stores and products that reflect the drive of a growing community of creative minds. ZazzleXplorer.com offers a birds eye view of the most vibrant Print on Demand marketplace in the world. Our listings help online shoppers to quickly find unique gift ideas and familiarize themselves with Zazzle's "Create Your Own" features. Posts about the Zazzle selling experience are also featured. New to Zazzle or seasoned Zazzlers alike will find something they can get inspired by on ZazzleXplorer.com. Make sure to bookmark ZazzleXplorer.com and follow our post releases throughout our yearly Edition. New articles every week from shopping treasures to insightful original tips and tricks for a successful selling experience on the Zazzle marketplace.

»visit the MustacheShoppe store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize with size, paper type etc.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Better together: Graphene-nanotube hybrid switches

more »
Researchers have combined two unlikely materials to make a digital switch that could improve high speed computing.
via Science Daily

The sugary secrets of candy-making chemistry

Science Focus

original post »

There's a real art to making candy — and a lot of science, too. Even the simplest sugary treat is shaped by complex chemistry. Here's some of the inventive science that goes on behind the scenes of making some of your favorite sweet treats:

(Amazon.com)

Atomic fireballs get their burn from the same stuff as hot peppers

Atomic Fireballs take cinnamon flavors over the edge into mouth-searing spiciness. To add some heat to their sweets, the makers of Atomic Fireballs, the Ferrara Candy Company, add a bit of a chemical called capsaicin, a little molecule that also gives hot peppers their kick. (Ferrara claims that the amount of capsaicin in Atomic Fireballs is equivalent to about 3,500 Scoville Heat Units, or the same spiciness as a jalapeno pepper.)

So what makes capsaicin so spicy? When the chemical binds to your taste receptors, it opens up channels in cell membranes that allow calcium ions to rush in — which, from your cells' point of view, is the exact same thing that happens when they're exposed to uncomfortable amounts of heat. Water won't neutralize the burn, because capsaicin is insoluble in it. Milk, on the other hand, works to take away the pain because it contains casein, a fat-loving molecule that can glom onto capsaicin's fatty tail, making it easier for the spicy molecules to be washed away.

(iStock)

Chocolate cherries get a liquid center from enzymes

There are lots of different ways of making chocolate-covered cherries, also known as cherry cordials. Some are just whole cherries coated in chocolate, while other cordials are made by placing cherries and cherry syrup in a chocolate mold that's plugged up with even more chocolate. But there's another way of making cherry cordials that gets a little more involved in chemistry.

These cherry cordials are made by coating a cherry with a sugary paste containing the enzyme invertase, which breaks down sugar, and then rolling that paste-covered cherry in chocolate. Once the cordials are made, they're stored for a couple weeks to allow the enzyme to do its work. Some of the sucrose in the cherries is broken down into the more water-soluble dextrose and fructose. "In effect, the outer part of the cherry liquefies in its own syrup, leaving the cherry center swimming in liquid," David Chisdes, a candy chemist, told the Los Angeles Times. "This explains how these succulent candies can be made without there being a hole somewhere in the coating."

(iStock)

The many transformations of sugar syrup

A lot of different types of candy can be made from a simple mixture of sugar and water. The key is in how hot you heat the mixture. Heated sugar solution passes through several candy stages, corresponding to the concentration of sugar in the mixture:

Thread stage — occurs when the mixture is heated to between 230 degrees Fahrenheit and 235 degrees F, and corresponds to a sugar concentration of 80 percent. When placed in water, this syrup forms a little liquid thread. This syrup is good for pouring over ice cream, glazing fruits, or sweetening tea.

Soft-ball stage — occurs at between 235 and 240 degrees F and corresponds to a sugar concentration of 85 percent. When dropped in water, the mixture forms a soft ball. This stage is good for making fondants and fudge.

Firm-ball stage — occurs at between 245 and 250 degrees F, with a sugar concentration of 87 percent. When dropped in water, this stage forms a ball that's still malleable but which won't flatten as much as the soft-ball stage. At this point, the mixture is good for making caramels.

Hard-ball stage — occurs at between 250 and 265 degrees F, with a sugar concentration of 92 percent. When dropped in water, this stage forms a hard ball that's still a little bit yielding if you really squish it. Marshmallows, gummies, and rock candy are made from this stage.

Soft-crack stage — occurs at between 270 and 290 degrees F, with a sugar concentration of 95 percent. When dropped in water, this stage forms threads that are flexible. Saltwater taffy and butterscotch are cooked to this stage.

Hard-crack stage — occurs at between 300 and 310 degrees F, with a sugar concentration of 99 percent. When dropped in water, this stage makes hard, brittle threads. Hard-crack stage is used to make lollipops, toffees, and brittles.

Heat your mixture beyond these stages and you will enter the realm of caramelization. The water in the mixture has been boiled off, and now there is a complicated series of reactions happening in the sugar molecules themselves. In the process, volatile chemicals are released that give caramelized sugar its luscious flavor.

The cool chemistry of rock candy

Candy chemistry isn't just dependent on how you heat up your sugar mixture; how you cool it down is important too. Rock candy is made by heating up sugar water to the hard-ball stage, then slowly cooling it for several days in order to allow huge crystals of sugar to form. Part of what allows those big crystals to grow is a fundamental chemistry concept known as Le Chatelier's principle, which basically says that when conditions are shifted inside a system at equilibrium, the system will respond in an attempt to restore equilibrium. In this case, the decreasing temperature of the sugar solution provokes crystallization.

"A decrease in temperature causes a system to generate energy, in an attempt to bring the temperature up," science writer Tom Husband wrote in an in-depth look at rock candy for the American Chemical Society. Sucrose molecules join together to form crystals and "because the formation of chemical bonds always releases energy, more sucrose molecules will join the crystal in an attempt to increase the temperature."

(iStock)

Smooth fudge is a delicate chemical process

For candies with a smooth texture, like fudge, a confectioner wants to minimize crystallization as the sugar mixture cools. Crystallization needs some "seed" to kickstart the process, a pattern for the dissolved sugar in the cooling mixture to copy, which could be a tiny sugar crystal or even a piece of stray dust. In making fudge, keeping anything that can act as a crystal nucleus out is key.

"This is why most fudge recipes require that the sides of the pot be washed down early in the cooking process, either with a wet pastry brush or by putting the lid on the pan for about three minutes to remove any sugar crystals clinging to the container walls," University of Alaska Fairbanks physicist Sue Ann Bowling wrote in a piece on fudgy physics. "It is also why the recipes specify that the sides and bottom of the pan should not be scraped into the bowl where the candy is to cool. There is too much chance of scraping in a stray sugar crystal."

Fudge recipes also counteract crystallization by recommending the use of more than one kind of sugar, like corn syrup as well as table sugar. Having different kinds of sugar in the solution means they interfere with the other's crystallization process, according to Bowling. Then, when the mixture has cooled enough, the fudge is stirred rapidly to stimulate crystallization all at once, which produces a fudge with lots of tiny crystals as opposed to fewer chunks of larger crystals — creating a taste that's creamy, not grainy.

#science
» see original post http://theweek.com/articles/442570/sugary-secrets-candymaking-chemistry
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Protein 'key to heart muscle defect'

Science Focus

original post »
The structure of a key protein implicated in diseases affecting the heart muscle has been uncovered, scientists say.
#science
» see original post http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30209235#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

This scientific study is a con man's dream come true

Science Focus

original post »

How do you decide if you can trust someone? Is it based on their handshake, the way they look you in the eye, or perhaps their body language?

We know that what someone wears has an effect on our trust in them. If you happen to be a doctor, 76 percent of us will favor you if you wear the white coat, compared to only 10 percent if you happen to just pop out in your surgical scrubs. Labels matter too. In one test, four times as many people were willing to stop and answer a survey on one day compared to another. The difference? Whether or not the interviewer had a designer label on their sweatshirt. But what if you had to decide whether or not to trust someone without knowing the gear they were togged up in? Without knowing anything about them at all?

When people fall victim to fraud, often it is because they have decided to trust a stranger. In mass-marketing fraud (known widely as the 419 scam or advance fee fraud), an unsolicited e-mail contact offers false promises or information designed to con you out of money. You may have already received an e-mail from, for example, a Nigerian prince who desperately needs your bank details in order to move some money out of the country fast. Phishing fraud, where links in carefully crafted, apparently legitimate emails redirect users to a different server, into which they are persuaded to enter usernames, passwords, or bank account details, cost the UK £405.8m in 2012, according to RSA Security.

But what makes some people laugh and delete immediately, while others are curious enough to find out more?

Playing games

A recent study led by Tim Hahn from Goethe University in Frankfurt examined people's initial levels of trust when co-operating with an unknown partner.

Sixty participants were asked to play the trust game, an extension of an experimental economics game called the dictator game for which the participants were put into pairs. Player one was given an initial amount of hypothetical "money" that they could choose whether or not to gamble with. The gamble was this: They could give their money to the stranger they were paired with, player two, and anything they gave would be tripled. Player two could then choose to give some of this money back to Player one, and again, anything they returned would be tripled — or player two could choose to keep it all.

In theory then, the more generous you are in the beginning, the richer you could become by the end. To make it more exciting, the players were told that at the end of the trust game, this notional money would be converted into real hard cash.

As player one, how much would you give away to a complete stranger? Well if you happen to have an electroencephalograph (EEG) handy, you can find out without ever needing to play. An EEG records your brain activity by measuring the electrical pulses generated by the brain's cells through a series of electrodes placed on your scalp. In this study, the researchers found that they could predict the amount of money the initial player would trust to the stranger purely based on the activity recorded by the EEG.

A state of trust

But what makes this finding even more interesting is that the EEG recording was taken several minutes before the trust game began. At this point, the staff running the experiment had not asked the participants to think about the game of trust. What the EEG recorded was the resting state of the participants' brains when not involved in tasks — relatively calm — rather than the heightened activity associated with performing mental or physical tasks.

Resting state brain activity is thought to be relatively stable over time. So the fact that the experimenters were able to predict the investment that player one would make to the stranger, player two, was purely based on this resting state activity. And it shows that initial levels of trust may be determined by an underlying pattern of brain activity.

So, returning to those who have unfortunately answered our Nigerian prince, or foreign businessman, or even opened the door to a man "from the electricity board," what this study perhaps indicates is that, regardless of the contents of the email or how convincing the con is, we are already subject to an unconscious bias as to whether or not we will trust that stranger.

Not only are some of us physically more inclined to trust strangers than others, but that susceptibility can be determined by any unscrupulous character who happens to have an EEG scanner to hand.

Scientists study ‘peanut-shaped’ asteroid near earth

more »
A mile-long asteroid that raced past Earth July 25 at about 45,000 miles per hour – at a safe distance of 4.5 million miles – was imaged by radar telescopes so that astronomers could discern its precise orbit and physical shape.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Sculpted Region of the Orion Nebula Rectangular Sticker

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

Sculpted Region of the Orion Nebula Rectangular Sticker

tagged with: peel off, galaxies and stars, orion nebula detail, sculpted gas clouds, sgcion, stellar winds, sculpting trapezium stars, messier 42, messier 43

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.

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series
image code: sgcion

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

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

A Proton Arc Over Lake Superior

Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Orion Nebula Heart Shape Wall Decal

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

Orion Nebula Heart Shape Wall Decal

tagged with: orion, nebula, pink, space, shape, image, cosmic, astronomy, plain, heart, pretty

Space image of the Orion Nebula on the shape of a plain heart shape.

»visit the annaleeblysse store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Orion Nebula iPad Mini Cases

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!

Orion Nebula iPad Mini Cases

tagged with: orion, nebula, space, image, nasa, hubble, astronomy

A lovely detail of an image of the Orion Nebula in infrared thanks to NASA/Hubble.

»visit the annaleeblysse store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Heat buckyballs to help environment

original post »

Rice University scientists are forging toward tunable carbon-capture materials with a new study that shows how chemical changes

The post Heat buckyballs to help environment has been published on Technology Org.

#materials
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Where the Grass is Always Redder on the Other Side Poster

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

Where the Grass is Always Redder on the Other Side Poster

tagged with: kepler-186f, planet, 'habitable, nasa, space, star, astronomy, solar

Kepler-186f is the first Earth-size planet discovered in the potentially 'habitable zone' around another star, where liquid water could exist on the planet's surface. Its star is much cooler and redder than our Sun. If plant life does exist on a planet like Kepler-186f, its photosynthesis could have been influenced by the star's red-wavelength photons, making for a color palette that's very different than the greens on Earth. This discovery was made by Kepler, NASA's planet hunting telescope.

»visit the msvb1te store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize with size, paper type etc.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Monogram - Sculpted Region of the Orion Nebula Classic Round Sticker

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

Monogram - Sculpted Region of the Orion Nebula Classic Round Sticker

tagged with: peel off, envelope sealers, galaxies and stars, orion nebula detail, sculpted gas clouds, sgcion, stellar winds, sculpting trapezium stars, messier 42, messier 43

Orion Nebula Green Heart Shape Wall Skin

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

Orion Nebula Green Heart Shape Wall Skin

tagged with: orion, nebula, shape, cosmic, astronomy, green, space image, plain, heart, space, image, pretty, aqua

Space image of the Orion Nebula on the shape of a plain heart shape.

»visit the annaleeblysse store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Orion Nebula iPad Air Covers

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!

Orion Nebula iPad Air Covers

tagged with: orion, nebula, space, image, nasa, hubble, astronomy