SciByte

Leeuwenhoek's animalcules

In 1676, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek applied his hobby of making microscopes from his own handmade lenses to observe some water running off a roof during a heavy rainstorm. He finds that it contains, in his words, “very little animalcules.” The life he has found in the runoff water is not present in pure rainwater. This was a fundamental discovery, for it showed that the bacteria and one-celled animals did not fall from the sky. When a ball of molten glass is inflated like a balloon, a small droplet of the hot fluid collects at the very bottom the bubble. Leeuwenhoek used these droplets as microscope lenses to view the animalcules. Despite their crude nature, those early lenses enabled Leeuwenhoek to describe an amazing world of microscopic life

Bifocal spectacles

In 1785, a letter from Benjamin Franklin referred to his bifocal glasses. Writing from France to George Whatley, a friend, Franklin described his “double glasses” solution to needing two pairs of glasses of different focussing power to see objects far or near He wrote, “I had the glasses cut and half of each kind associated in the same circle. ... I have only to move my eyes up and down as I want to see far or near, the proper glasses always being ready.” The wording the letter leaves it uncertain has long before Franklin had referrred to. Some historians have pointed to evidence of others making split-lens spectacles. So, it remains likely, but not definite, that Franklin actually invented the bifocal glasses, and it may have been in the early 1760s. He was certainly well-known for wearing and popularizing them

This week, an international team of researchers

announced the discovery of an exoplanet

155 light years

Certain areas in the brains of children with autism overreact to sensory stimuli, such as the touch of a scratchy sweater and loud traffic noises

a new small study shows

The finding helps to explain why autistic kids are five times more likely than other children to be overwhelmed by everyday sensations

The discovery of a new sauropod dinosaur species, Leinkupal laticauda, found in Argentina may be the first record of a diplodocid from South America and the youngest record of Diplodocidae in the world

Diplodocids are part of a group of sauropod dinosaurs known for their large bodies, as well as extremely long necks and tails

Scientists have identified a new diplodocid sauropod from the early Cretaceous period in Patagonia, Argentina -- the first diplodocid sauropod discovered in South America

The acronym CERN originally stood in French for Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (European Council for Nuclear Research), which was a provisional council for setting up the laboratory, established by 12 European governments in 1952

The acronym was retained for the new laboratory after the provisional council was dissolved, even though the name changed

This NeXT Computer used by British scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee at CERN became the first Web server

Halley's Comet

In 1910, the Earth passed through the tail of Halley's Comet, the most intimate contact between the Earth and any comet in recorded history. The event was anticipated with dire predictions. Since a few years earlier, astronomers had found the poisonous gas cyanogen in a comet, it was surmised that if Earth passed through the comet's tail everyone would die. Astronomers explained that the gas molecules within the tail were so tenuous that absolutely no ill effects would be noticed. Nevertheless, ignorance bred opportunists selling "comet pills" to the panicked portion of the public to counter the effects of the cyanogen gas. On 20 May, after Earth had passed through the tail, everyone was still alive - with or without taking pills!

Mount St. Helens

In 1980, following a weeklong series of earthquakes and smaller explosions of ash and smoke, the long-dormant Mount St. Helens volcano erupted in Washington state, U.S., hurling ash 15,000 feet into the air and setting off mudslides and avalanches. The eruptions caused minimal damage in the sparsely populated area, but about 400 people - mostly loggers and forest rangers - were evacuated. The explosion was characterized as the equivalent of 27,000 atomic bombs. The cloud of ash eventually circled the globe

CERN groundbreaking

In 1954, official ground-breaking took place at the Meyrin site of the new CERN Laboratory in Geneva. A recommendation had been adopted 12 Dec 1949 at the European Cultural Conference for a European Institute of Nuclear Physics. By 1952, the third session of its provisional Council decided to locate in Switzerland. In Jun 1953, the host community, the canton of Geneva, gave strong approval in a referendum passing with 16539 votes to 7332. On 29 Sep 1954, twelve founding Member States ratified CERN (Centre Européenne de Recherche Nucléaire): Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia.

Kepler's Law

In 1618, Johannes Kepler discovered his harmonics law published in his five-volume work Harmonices Mundi (Harmony of the Worlds, 1619). He attempted to explain proportions and geometry in planetary motions by relating them to musical scales and intervals (an extension of what Pythagoras had described as the “harmony of the spheres”.) Kepler said each planet produces musical tones during its revolution about the sun, and the pitch of the tones varies with the angular velocities of those planets as measured from the sun. The Earth sings Mi, Fa, Mi. At very rare intervals all planets would sing in perfect concord. Kepler proposed that this may have happened only once in history, perhaps at the time of creation.«

The full-depth hole for sample collection is close to a shallower test hole drilled last week in the same rock, which gave researchers a preview of the interior material as tailings around the hole

"The drill tailings from this rock are darker-toned and less red than we saw at the two previous drill sites," said Jim Bell

, deputy principal investigator for Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam)

This October, a comet will brush

giving scientists a chance to study how it possibly interacts with a planetary atmosphere

an impact of the comet on the surface of the Red Planet has long been ruled out

The World Cup opening ceremony

June 12

a standout for athletes and their fans but yet another eye-opener may make the Sao Paulo stadium opener long remembered globally

Paleontologists have discovered a fossil of a newly discovered organism from the Ediacara Biota

Plexus ricei was a broadly curving tube that resided on the seafloor

Individuals range in size from 5 to 80 cm long and 5 to 20 mm wide

A team of researchers working at MIT has used data supplied by gamers on EyeWire to help explain how it is that the retina is able to process motion detection

the team describes how they worked with gamers at EyeWire and then used the resulting mapped neural networks to propose a new theory to describe how it is the eye is able to understand what happens when something moves in front of it.

Scientists have known for quite some time that light enters the eye and strikes the back of the eyeball where photoreceptors respond