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Mars Base

Desert Farming Experiment Yields First Results | Science/AAAS | News - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...xperiment-yields-first-results

scibyte110 Farming

shared by Mars Base on 17 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • A project to “green” desert areas with an innovative mix of technologies—producing food, biofuel, clean water, energy, and salt
  • A pilot plant built by the Sahara Forest Project (SFP) produced 75 kilograms of vegetables per square meter in three crops annually, comparable to commercial farms in Europe, while consuming only sunlight and seawate
  • The heart of the SFP concept is a specially designed greenhouse. At one end, salt water is trickled over a gridlike curtain so that the prevailing wind blows the resulting cool, moist air over the plants inside
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • This cooling effect allowed the
  • facility to grow three crops per year, even in the scorching summer
  • At the other end of the greenhouse is a network of pipes with cold seawater running through them
  • Some of the moisture in the air condenses on the pipes and is collected, providing a source of fresh water
  • One of the surprising side effects of such a seawater greenhouse, seen during early experiments, is that cool moist air leaking out of it encourages other plants to grow spontaneously outside
  • Qatar plant took advantage of that effect to grow crops around the greenhouse, including barley and salad rocket (arugula), as well as useful desert plants
  • The pilot plant accentuated this exterior cooling with more “evaporative hedges” that reduced air temperatures by up to 10°C.
  • The third key element of the SFP facility is a concentrated solar power plant
  • This uses mirrors in the shape of a parabolic trough to heat a fluid flowing through a pipe at its focus. The heated fluid then boils water, and the steam drives a turbine to generate power
  • the plant has electricity to run its control systems and pumps and can use any excess to desalinate water for irrigating the plants
  • The fact that this small greenhouse produced such good yields,
  • suggests that a commercial plant—with possibly four crops a year—could do even better
Mars Base

Mosses frozen in time come back to life | Life | Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...ozen_in_time_come_back_to_life

scibyte96 FrozenLife

shared by Mars Base on 28 May 13 - No Cached
  • After hundreds of years buried under ice, mosses can regrow
  • The revived plants come from Canada’s Ellesmere Island, where the Teardrop Glacier has retreated since the end of a cold period in 1550 to 1850 known as the Little Ice Age
  • On recently exposed ground
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • found clumps of mosses that looked dead. But among the brown tangles, the team noticed a few green sprigs
  • The team took brown moss samples back to the lab and used radiocarbon dating to determine that they had lived about 400 years ago
  • Based on the glacier’s retreat rate, the researchers estimated the plants had been uncovered for less than two years.
  • the team ground up some of the plants and gave them nutrients, water and light
  • From seven of 24 samples, a total of four moss species grew
  • The budding plants didn’t come from seeds or spores
  • In moss
  • any cell can be reset, almost like a stem cell, to grow a new plant
  • how long a moss cell can stay viable is “anyone’s guess,”
  • the findings suggest that the regenerated mosses may help repopulate ecosystems after glaciers retreat
Mars Base

NASA May Put Tiny Greenhouse on Mars in 2021 | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/se-rover-plant-experiment.html

scibyte131 ViewerFeedback MarsPlantExperiment

shared by Mars Base on 11 May 14 - No Cached
  • Researchers have proposed putting a plant-growth experiment on NASA's next Mars rover
  • scheduled to launch in mid-2020 and land on the Red Planet in early 2021.
  • known as the Mars Plant Experiment (MPX),
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • could help lay the foundation for the colonization of Mars,
  • its designers say
  • The MPX team
  • isn't suggesting that the 2020 Mars rover should
  • digging a hole with its robotic arm and planting seeds in the Red Planet's dirt.
  • the experiment would be entirely self-contained, eliminating the chance that Earth life could escape and perhaps get a foothold on Mars.
  • MPX would employ a clear "CubeSat" box
  • which would be affixed to the exterior of the 2020 rover
  • This box would hold Earth air and about 200 seeds of Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant that's commonly used in scientific research
  • The seeds would receive water when the rover touched down on Mars, and would then be allowed to grow for two weeks or so.
  • MPX would provide an organism-level test
  • how Earth life deals with the Red Planet's relatively high radiation levels and low gravity, which is about 40 percent as strong as that of Earth,
  • "It also would be the first multicellular organism to grow, live and die on another planet
Mars Base

Pitcher plant uses power of the rain to trap prey (w/ Video) - 0 views

phys.org/...012-06-pitcher-power-prey.html

scibyte51 PitcherPlant

shared by Mars Base on 14 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • During heavy rain, the lid of
  • pitchers acts like a springboard, catapulting insects that seek shelter on its underside directly into the fluid-filled pitcher
  • Pitcher plants (Nepenthes) rely on insects as a source of nutrients, enabling them to colonise nutrient-poor habitats where other plants struggle to grow
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Prey is captured in specialised pitcher-shaped leaves with slippery surfaces on the upper rim and inner wall
  • If an insect tries to walk on the wet surface, its adhesive pads (the 'soles' of its feet) are prevented from making contact with the surface and instead slip
  • similar to the 'aquaplaning' effect of a car tire on a wet road.
  • scientists simulated 'rain' with a hospital drip and recorded its effect on a captive colony of ants that was foraging on the nectar under the lid
  • ants were safe before and directly after the 'rain', but when the drip was switched on about 40% of the ants got trapped.
  • Further research revealed that the lower lid surface of the N. gracilis pitcher is covered with highly specialised wax crystals
  • structure seems to provide just the right level of slipperiness to enable insects to walk on the surface under 'calm' conditions but lose their footing when the lid is disturbed (in most cases, by rain drops).
  • scientists also found that the lid of N. gracilis secretes larger amounts of attractive nectar than that of other pitcher plants, presumably to take advantage of this unique mechanism
Mars Base

Habitable Planets & Plant Power | Jupiter Broadcasting - 0 views

www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/...planets-plant-power-scibyte-32

scibyte42 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 12 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Habitable Planets & Plant Power | SciByte 32
  • February 7, 2012
  • Habitable planet?
Mars Base

Storm Scents: It's True, You Can Smell Oncoming Summer Rain: Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

scibyte55 SmellStorm

shared by Mars Base on 19 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • When people say they can smell a storm coming, they're right
  • Weather patterns produce distinctive odors that sensitive noses sniff out.
  • Before the rain begins, one of the first odors you may notice
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • is a sweet, pungent zing in your nostrils
  • fresh aroma of ozone
  • Petrichor
  • occurs when airborne molecules from decomposing plant or animal matter become attached to mineral or clay surfaces
  • when the rains came, the redolent combination of fatty acids, alcohols and hydrocarbons is released
  • Petrichor potpourri
  • Falling water disturbs and displaces odoriferous molecules on surfaces, particularly on dry ones, and carry them into the
  • happen to be near vegetation, these molecules may come from plants and trees
  • rise up from concrete and asphalt
  • Damp earth
  • After a storm has moved through
  • aroma of geosmin, a metabolic by-product of bacteria or blue-green algae
  • Microbiologist Keith Chater at the John Innes Center in England has proposed that geosmin's fragrance may be a beacon, helping camels find their way to desert oases
Mars Base

Germany sets weekend record for solar power - 0 views

phys.org/...rmany-weekend-solar-power.html

scibyte49 solarcell

shared by Mars Base on 30 May 12 - No Cached
  • Solar power plants in Germany have set a new record. “Never before anywhere has a country produced as much photovoltaic electricity,"
  • plants peaked at 22 gigawatts of output for a few hours over the weekend, on Friday and Saturday
  • they yielded almost half the country's energy mid-day electricity needs
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • 22 gigawatts is up from 14 GW a year ago. Also, this 22 gigawatts of output is equal to about 20 nuclear plants.
  • 2012 Environment Ministry report showed that German taxpayers pay an extra four billion euros per year on top of their electricity bills to support solar power
  • The new record-breaking figures from Germany, however, do not quiet some energy experts who stress that without good storage strategies for excess power, such record-breaking numbers are not meaningful. They say the real point is to get consistently large percentages of power from renewable sources.
Mars Base

Another tiny miracle: Graphene oxide soaks up radioactive waste - 0 views

phys.org/...raphene-oxide-radioactive.html

scibyte77

shared by Mars Base on 09 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Graphene oxide has a remarkable ability to quickly remove radioactive material from contaminated water
  • A collaborative effort by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour and the Moscow lab of chemist Stepan Kalmykov
  • microscopic, atom-thick flakes of graphene oxide bind quickly to natural and human-made radionuclides and condense them into solids
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • flakes are soluble in liquids and easily produced in bulk
  • The discovery
  • could be a boon in the cleanup of contaminated sites like the Fukushima nuclear plants
  • could also cut the cost of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") for oil and gas recovery and help reboot American mining of rare earth metals
  • Graphene oxide's large surface area defines its capacity to adsorb toxins
  • high retention properties are not surprising
  • What is astonishing is the very fast kinetics of sorption, which is key
  • the collaboration took root when
  • a graduate student
  • graduate student in Kalmykov's group, met at a conference several years ago.
  • researchers focused on removing radioactive isotopes of the actinides and lanthanides – the 30 rare earth elements in the periodic table – from liquids, rather than solids or gases
  • Naturally occurring radionuclides are also unwelcome in fracking fluids that bring them to the surface in drilling operations
  • When groundwater comes out of a well and it's radioactive above a certain level, they can't put it back into the ground
  • Companies have to ship contaminated water to repository sites around the country at very large expense
  • The ability to quickly filter out contaminants on-site would save a great deal of money
  • even greater potential benefits for the mining industry
  • Environmental requirements have "essentially shut down U.S. mining of rare earth metals, which are needed for cell phones
  • China owns the market because they're not subject to the same environmental standards
  • this technology offers the chance to revive mining here, it could be huge
  • capturing radionuclides does not make them less radioactive, just easier to handle
  • Where you have huge pools of radioactive material, like at Fukushima, you add graphene oxide and get back a solid material from what were just ions in a solution
  • Then you can skim it off and burn it
  • Graphene oxide burns very rapidly and leaves a cake of radioactive material you can then reuse
  • The low cost and biodegradable qualities of graphene oxide should make it appropriate for use in permeable reactive barriers, a fairly new technology for in situ groundwater remediation,
Mars Base

Tomato genome fully sequenced - 0 views

phys.org/...to-genome-fully-sequenced.html

scibyte49 tomato genome

shared by Mars Base on 31 May 12 - No Cached
  • the genome was sequenced from the "Heinz 1706" tomato
  • the genome of the tomato
  • has been decoded, and it becomes an important step toward improving yield, nutrition, disease resistance, taste and color of the tomato and other crops
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • as well as the sequence of a wild relative
  • researchers report that tomatoes possess some 35,000 genes arranged on 12 chromosomes
  • For any characteristic of the tomato, whether it's taste, natural pest resistance or nutritional content, we've captured virtually all those genes
  • Now that the genome sequence of one variety of tomato is known, it will also be easier and much less expensive for seed companies and plant breeders to sequence other varieties
  • he first tomato genome sequence came at a cost of millions of dollars, subsequent ones might only cost $10,000 or less, by building on these initial findings.
  • The sequencing of the tomato genome has implications for other plant species
  • Strawberries, apples, melons, bananas and many other fleshy fruits, share some characteristics with tomatoes
  • information about the genes and pathways involved in fruit ripening can potentially be applied to them, helping to improve food quality, food security and reduce costs
Mars Base

Hot-spring fossils preserve complete Jurassic ecosystem - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...ossils-jurassic-ecosystem.html

scibyte36 fossils

shared by Mars Base on 03 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Scientists are uncovering a beautifully-preserved ecosystem from around a Jurassic hot spring, helping fill a gap in the fossil record of more than 300 million years.
  • Patagonia in southern Argentina, the San Agustin geothermal deposits include animals, plants, fungi and bacteria, preserved in three dimensions and with their internal structure largely intact.
  • date from around 150 million years ago
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • formed around an area where water heated deep underground rose to the surface
  • first time a hot-spring habitat from the Mesozoic era (from about 250 to 65 million years ago) has ever been discovered
  • Hot springs
  • are treasure troves for palaeontologists
  • the dissolved silica in their waters quickly penetrates and preserves the bodies of living things that die there
  • preserved in three dimensions rather than crushed into a two-dimensional film
  • It's a near-intact ecosystem that's beautifully preserved
  • We have the remains of everything from the bacteria living right around the hot spring vents all the way to the plants, crustaceans and insects living in wetlands further away and the trees and ferns from the forests around the margins. We also have evidence of how all these organisms interacted
  • The discovery of a rich assemblage of fossils from between these extremes could transform scientists' understanding of a vital stage in life's development
Mars Base

Back to life after 1,500 years: Moss brought back to life after 1,500 years frozen in i... - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...140317125036.htm

scibyte124 moss

shared by Mars Base on 18 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and Reading University have demonstrated that, after over 1,500 years frozen in Antarctic ice, moss can come back to life and continue to grow
  • The team,
  • observed moss regeneration after at least 1,530 years frozen in permafrost
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • This is the first study to show such long-term survival in any plant; similar timescales have only been seen before in bacteria
  • Mosses are
  • the dominant plants over large areas and are a major storer of fixed carbon
  • The team took cores of moss from deep in a frozen moss bank in the Antarctic
  • This moss would already have been at least decades old when it was first frozen
  • in an incubator at a normal growth temperature and light level
  • After only a few weeks,
  • the moss began to grow
  • Using carbon dating, the team identified the moss to be at least 1,530 years of age, and possibly even older, at the depth where the new growth was seen.
Mars Base

Headache Tree Is A Pain In The Brain - Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...he_tree_is_a_pain_in_the_brain

scibyte20 brain headache

shared by Mars Base on 04 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • One whiff of a plant known as the headache tree can spur intense, excruciating pain — and now scientists know why
  • An ingredient in the tree sets off a chain of events that eventually amps up blood flow to the brain’s outer membrane.
  • Other headache triggers
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • interact with some of the same cellular machinery, suggesting they all work via the same pain-inducing mechanism
  • an international group of researchers extracted the plant compound umbellulone from dried bay laurel leaves
  • Umbellulone tickles the same cellular detector that responds to painfully cold stimuli and the sinus-clearing scent of wasabi and mustard oil
  • triggers the release of a particular protein implicated in migraine headaches
  • This protein prompts blood vessels to swell
Mars Base

Love Of Spicy Food Is Built Into Your Personality | Popular Science - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...cy-food-built-your-personality

scibyte74 Personality

shared by Mars Base on 06 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • But the science of spicy food liking and intake
  • shows there’s more to it than just increased tolerance with repeated exposure
  • research dating back at least to the 1980s
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • Personality, researchers say, is also a factor in whether a person enjoys spicy meals and how often he or she eats them
  • desensitization to capsaicin, the plant chemical that gives peppers their burn, is well documented, there’s also evidence that the effect is surprisingly small
  • researchers have previously linked chili liking to thrill seeking, specifically an affinity for amusement park rides and gambling
  • investigators found a relationship between chili liking and sensation seeking when using a more formal measure of personality called Zuckerman’s Sensation Seeking Scale
  • In both cases, however, the associations were fairly weak, and neither study looked at intake -- how often a person eats spicy foods, versus how much a person likes spice.
  • used an updated measure of sensation seeking that avoided gender- and age-biased questions
  • Sensation seeking emerged as a much stronger predictor of spicy food liking than in the previous studies
  • it also predicted how often a person ate chili-laden meals
  • personality trait, however, was not associated with high liking of non-spicy foods, which reduced the possibility that thrill seekers are just crazy about food in general
  • frequent chili eaters didn’t feel the burn from the capsaicin sample any less than people who ate peppers less often
  • The study group may not have been large enough to show a desensitization effect
  • lack of evidence for desensitization in the study boosts the argument for personality as an important factor
  • combination of factors influences who goes for the mild wings on Super Bowl Sunday and who reaches for hot
  • childhood exposure and learning all play a critical role in liking for spicy foods
  • also individuals who acquired an entirely [new] set of food preferences as adults once they moved away from home
  • may have been a disconnect between reported frequency of intake and actual dose
  • Ninety-seven male and female participants ranging in age from 18 to 45 filled out a food-liking questionnaire
  • rated the intensity of sensations after sampling six stimuli, including capsaicin mixed in water
Mars Base

First drug to improve heart failure mortality in over a decade - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...-failure-mortality-decade.html

scibyte96 scibyte97 heart

shared by Mars Base on 01 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Coenzyme Q10 decreases all cause mortality by half
  • results of a multicentre randomised double blind trial
  • It is the first drug to improve heart failure mortality in over a decade
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) occurs naturally in the body and is essential to survival
  • CoQ10 works as an electron carrier in the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cells, to produce energy and is also a powerful antioxidant
  • CoQ10 levels are decreased in the heart muscle of patients with heart failure, with the deficiency becoming more pronounced as heart failure severity worsens
  • Double blind controlled trials have shown that CoQ10 improves symptoms, functional capacity and quality of life in patients with heart failure with no side effects
  • until now, no trials have been statistically powered to address effects on survival
  • study randomised 420 patients with severe heart failure
  • to CoQ10 or placebo and followed them for 2 years
  • primary endpoint was time to first major adverse cardiovascular event (MACE)
  • unplanned hospitalisation due to worsening of heart failure, cardiovascular death, urgent cardiac transplantation and mechanical circulatory support
  • CoQ10 halved the risk of MACE
  • 29 (14%) patients in the CoQ10 group reaching the primary endpoint compared to 55 (25%) patients in the placebo group
  • CoQ10 also halved the risk of dying from all causes, which occurred in 18 (9%) patients in the CoQ10 group compared to 36 (17%) patients in the placebo group
  • CoQ10 treated patients had significantly lower cardiovascular mortality
  • and lower occurrence of hospitalisations for heart failure
  • There were fewer adverse events in the CoQ10 group compared to the placebo group
  • CoQ10 is the first medication to improve survival in chronic heart failure since ACE inhibitors and beta blockers more than a decade ago
  • Other heart failure medications block rather than enhance cellular processes and may have side effects
  • CoQ10
  • is a natural and safe substance, corrects a deficiency in the body and blocks the vicious metabolic cycle in chronic heart failure called the energy starved heart
  • CoQ10 is present in food, including red meat, plants and fish, but levels are insufficient to impact on heart failure
  • CoQ10 is also sold over the counter as a food supplement but
  • Food supplements can influence the effect of other medications including anticoagulants and patients should seek advice from their doctor before taking them
Mars Base

Science Retractions: Top 5 Withdrawn Studies Of 2012 - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...ithdrawn-papers_n_2353421.html

scibyte76 Retraction

shared by Mars Base on 01 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Hyung-In Moon is a genius, says Hyung-In Moon
  • Korean scientist Hyung-In Moon took the concept of scientific peer review to a whole new level by reviewing his own papers under various fake names
  • Moon's research — which included a study on alcoholic liver disease and another on an anticancer plant substance — can't be trusted
  • ...33 more annotations...
  • admitted to falsifying data in some of his papers
  • , 35 of his papers have been retracted in 2012.
  • Peer review is a process in which scientific peers in the same field judge the merit of a submitted journal paper
  • editors at the Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry grew suspicious when four of his glowing reviews came back within 24 hours. Anyone who has ever submitted a paper for peer review knows that reviewers take weeks or months to reply
  • Math paper a big, fat zero
  • "In this study, a computer application was used to solve a mathematical problem"
  • Neither the one-sentence abstract
  • nor the co-author's e-mail address, ohm@budweiser.com
  • publishing this one-page gem entitled "A computer application in mathematics"
  • published in January 2010 but not retracted until April 2012, despite silly sentences such as "Computer magnification is a Universal computer phenomenon" and "This is a problematic problem."
  • retracted the paper because it "contains no scientific content." The editors chalked it up to "an administrative error
  • Maybe his failure doesn't feel better than success
  • The Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel
  • has found that,
  • failure sometimes feels better than success
  • The only problem is that his research appears to be either mostly or completely fabricated
  • work has appeared in top journals
  • his good looks and clever research topics made him a media darling
  • So far, 31 papers have been retracted
  • meat eaters are absolved: One of Stapel's studies, now suspected to be fabricated, found that meat eaters are more selfish and less social than vegetarians
  • Studies proposing a link between cellphone use and cancer often rely on weak statistics. This one just used fudged data
  • in 2008, scientists published a paper
  • stating that cellphones in standby mode lowered the sperm count and caused other adverse changes in the testicles of rabbits
  • although small and published in a rather obscure journal, made the news rounds.
  • In March 2012, the authors retracted the paper
  • the lead author didn't get permission from his two co-authors and, according to the retraction notice, there was a "lack of evidence to justify the accuracy of the data presented in the article."
  • Stem-cell cure for heart disease likely faked
  • biologist Shinya Yamanaka had just won the 2012 Nobel Prize for his discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), which are adult cells that can be reprogrammed to their "embryonic" stage
  • claimed at a New York Stem Cell Foundation meeting in early October to have advanced this technology to cure a person with terminal heart failure
  • Two institutions listed as collaborating on Moriguchi's related papers
  • denied that any of Moriguchi's procedures took place there
  • origuchi has admitted only to making some "procedural" mistakes
  • He is sticking to his story, however, that one patient was cured … at a Boston hospital not yet named
Mars Base

Meteor strike in Russia hurts almost 1,000 (w/ Video) - 0 views

phys.org/...ower-panic-central-russia.html

scibyte82 RussianMeteor

shared by Mars Base on 16 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • The fall of such a large meteor estimated as weighing dozens of tonnes was extremely rare
  • 950 people were injured, with two-thirds of the injuries light wounds from glass shards and other materials blown out by the shockwave
  • the ministry saying almost 300 buildings were damaged including schools, hospitals, a zinc factory and even an ice hockey stadium
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • At 9:20 am (0320 GMT), an object was observed above Chelyabinsk which flew by at great speed and left a trail behind. Within two minutes there were two bangs," regional emergencies official Yuri Burenko
  • office of the local governor said that a meteorite had fallen into a lake outside the town of Chebarkul in the Chelyabinsk region and television images pointed to a six-metre (20-foot) hole in the frozen lake's ice
  • it has yet to be finally confirmed if meteorite fragments made contact with the Earth and there were no reports that any locals had been hurt directly by a falling piece of meteorite
  • the shock wave blew out windows amid temperatures as low as minus 18 degrees Celsius (zero degrees Fahrenheit
  • Russian Academy of Sciences
  • estimated the body to be several metres long and weighing several dozen tonnes
  • The meteor explosion appears to be one of the most stunning cosmic events above Russia since the 1908 Tunguska Event
  • With the meteor quickly a leading trend on Twitter
  • locals posted amateur footage on YouTube showing men swearing in surprise and fright, and others grinding their cars to a halt
  • virtually impossible" to spot objects such as the meteor that struck Russia, which he called a "tiny asteroid", ahead of time against a daytime sky
  • The Chelyabinsk region is Russia's industrial heartland
  • huge facilities that include a nuclear power plant and the massive Mayak atomic waste storage and treatment centre
  • radiation levels in the region also did not change and that 20,000 rescue workers had been dispatched to help the injured and locate those requiring help
Mars Base

Exeter biologist rediscovers 'forgotten' 19th century illustrations - 0 views

phys.org/...ediscovers-forgotten-19th.html

scibyte45f CollectionDigitized

shared by Mars Base on 09 May 12 - No Cached
  • unique collection of nineteenth century visual teaching aids belonging to the University of Exeter has been rediscovered after more than six decades
  • created by local naturalist Charles Thomas Hudson FRS to illustrate his lectures
  • They are framed paintings of microscopic animals and plants, all masked with thick brown paper
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • When backlit in a darkened room the transparencies are transformed
  • illuminating the various organisms
  • have been kept in a dark room in the University’s Hatherly Laboratories since the 1960s.
  • storage conditions have proved ideal and the collection is still in excellent condition.
  • University of Exeter zoologist Dr. Robin Wootton, whose cataloguing project has brought the slides out of obscurity
  • painstakingly photographed each individual painting, using Photoshop Elements to optimise lighting and visibility.
  • the history of the transparencies
  • the University had acquired them from a Mrs F.R. Rowley on the death of her husband
  • in the late 1930s
  • it is possible that he may have known Hudson personally
Mars Base

S.Korean, Russian scientists bid to clone mammoth - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...-scientists-clone-mammoth.html

scibyte38 mammoth

shared by Mars Base on 14 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Russian and South Korean scientists have signed a deal on joint research intended to recreate a woolly mammoth, an animal which last walked the earth some 10,000 years ago.
  • The deal was signed by Vasily Vasiliev, vice rector of North-Eastern Federal University of the Sakha Republic
  • controversial cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, on Tuesday.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Hwang was a national hero until some of his research into creating human stem cells was found in 2006 to have been faked
  • Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog, in 2005, has been verified by experts
  • Sooam said it would launch research this year if the Russian university can ship the remains. The Beijing Genomics Institute will also take part in the project
  • South Korean foundation said it would transfer technology to the Russian university
  • first and hardest mission is to restore mammoth cells
  • scientists in trying to find well-preserved tissue with an undamaged gene
  • replacing the nuclei of egg cells from an elephant with those taken from the mammoth's somatic cells,
  • embryos with mammoth DNA could be produced and planted into elephant wombs for delivery
  • Sooam will use an Indian elephant for its somatic cell nucleus transfer
  • South Korean experts have previously cloned animals including a cow, a cat, dogs, a pig and a wolf
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