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Mars Base

Radiolab Wants Your Help To Track The Once-Every-17-Year Cicada "Swarmageddon" | Popula... - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...ry-17-year-cicada-swarmageddon

scibyte88 Cicada

shared by Mars Base on 02 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Magicicada is a genus of cicada with either a 13- or a 17-year lifespan, depending on species
  • t the Magicicada larvae live underground for nearly their entire lives, feeding on fluids from tree roots in the northeast United States, emerging with only a few weeks life in their lives
  • to molt into adults, mate, lay eggs, and die.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • we're not really sure why they use this life cycle strategy, but one guess is that such a long period between broods could fool predators, who likely won't have been alive (or won't remember) the previous emergence.
  • Brood II, also known as the "East Coast Brood," is a 17-year cicada due for emergence this summer
  • It ranges from the Virginia/North Carolina border up through the northern end of the New York City suburbs
  • Radiolab
  • radio shows/podcasts
  • has come up with a cicada tracker to pinpoint exactly when Brood II will begin "swarmageddon."
  • Radiolab will
  • monitor the soil temperature. When the soil eight inches below the surface reaches a steady temperature of 64 degrees F, the cicadas will begin their transformation
  • You can then report your findings to Radiolab, starting at the latest in mid-April
  • Radiolab's interactive map just when they'll emerge
Mars Base

Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...son_Microwave_Anisotropy_Probe

scibyte88 WMAP

shared by Mars Base on 31 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • a spacecraft which measures differences in the temperature of the Big Bang's remnant radiant heat – the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation – across the full sky
  • The WMAP spacecraft was launched on June 30, 2001,
  • The WMAP mission succeeds the COBE space mission and was the second medium-class (MIDEX) spacecraft of the Explorer program.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • WMAP's measurements played the key role in establishing the current Standard Model of Cosmology
  • WMAP data are very well fit by a universe that is dominated by dark energy in the form of a cosmological constant
  • The anisotropies then are used to measure the universe's geometry, content, and evolution; and to test the Big Bang model, and the cosmic inflation theory
  • he map contains 3,145,728 pixels, and uses the HEALPix scheme to pixelize the sphere
  • The telescope's primary reflecting mirrors are a pair
  • that focus the signal onto a pair of
  • secondary reflecting mirrors.
  • shaped for optimal performance: a carbon fibre shell upon a Korex core, thinly-coated with aluminium and silicon oxide.
  • The secondary reflectors transmit the signals to the corrugated feedhorns that sit on a focal plane array box beneath the primary reflectors
  • The receivers are polarization-sensitive differential radiometers measuring the difference between two telescope beams.
  • To avoid collecting Milky Way galaxy foreground signals, the WMAP uses five discrete radio frequency bands
  • The WMAP's trajectory and orbit
  • The WMAP observes in five frequencies, permitting the measurement and subtraction of foreground contamination (from the Milky Way
  • Foreground contamination is removed in several ways
  • First, subtract extant emission maps from the WMAP's measurements; second, use the components' known, spectral values to identify them; third, simultaneously fit the position and spectra data of the foreground emission, using extra data sets
Mars Base

Gut microbes may be behind weight loss after gastric bypass | Genes & Cells | Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...ight_loss_after_gastric_bypass

scibyte88 WeightLoss

shared by Mars Base on 28 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Roux-en-Y, the most common technique for gastric bypass, diverts food around most of the stomach and upper small intestine
  • Previous studies of people and rats have found that the natural mix of microbes in the intestines changes after gastric bypass, with some groups growing more prominent and others diminishing in number
  • No one knew whether the altered microbial composition was merely a side effect of the surgery, or whether shifting bacterial populations could help people lose weight.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • To find out
  • fattened up mice then performed either bypass or a sham surgery on the animals
  • Mice in the bypass group lost about 29 percent of their body weight within three weeks of the procedure
  • even before the mice dropped weight, those in the bypass group already had an altered mix of intestinal bacteria
  • Compared with the sham operation group, the bypass mice had more of certain types of microbes
  • Some species of
  • are pathogens, but others help prevent inflammation and maintain intestinal health
  • Bypass mice also had more
  • bacteria, which can feed on mucus lining the intestines, particularly when the host is cutting calories
  • researchers speculate that the microbes somehow trigger fat-burning changes in the host’s metabolism
  • Then the researchers transplanted bacteria from the intestines of bypass mice into mice that had been raised without any bacteria
  • The formerly germ-free mice slimmed down, trimming about 5 percent of their body weight, even though they started out lean
  • Germ-free mice that received bacteria from the guts of sham surgery mice actually packed on a bit of fat
Mars Base

Soyuz Makes Record-Breaking 'Fast Track' to Space Station - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ng-fast-track-to-space-station

scibyte88 iss

shared by Mars Base on 29 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • The new abbreviated four-orbit rendezvous with the ISS uses a modified launch and docking profile for the Russian ships
  • It has been tried successfully with three Progress resupply vehicles, but this is the first time it has been used on a human flight.
  • In the past, Soyuz manned capsules and Progress supply ships were launched on trajectories that required about two days, or 34 orbits, to reach the ISS.
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  • The new fast-track trajectory has the rocket launching shortly after the ISS passes overhead
  • Then, additional firings of the vehicle’s thrusters early in its mission expedites the time required for a Russian vehicle to reach the Station
Mars Base

Space Station Crew Captures Soyuz Launch, As Seen from Orbit - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...oyuz-launch-as-seen-from-orbit

scibyte88 iss

shared by Mars Base on 29 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • The Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft launched at 2:43 a.m. Friday local time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (4:43 p.m. EDT, 20:43 UTC on March 28),
  • crew of Pavel Vinogradov, Aleksandr Misurkin and Chris Cassidy
  • The fast-track launch had the crew arriving in just 5 hours and 45 minutes after launch
Mars Base

New US-Russian Crew Docks at Space Station After Super-Fast Flight | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/ule-docking-space-station.html

scibyte88 iss

shared by Mars Base on 29 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Before now, manned trips to the space station have taken at least two days, but with the docking of this ship just six hours after liftoff
Mars Base

True colors of some fossil feathers now in doubt (w/ Video) - 0 views

phys.org/...rue-fossil-feathers-video.html

scibyte88 Fossil-Feather

shared by Mars Base on 29 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • evidence for the colors of feathers—especially melanin-based colors—can be altered during fossilization
  • past reconstructions of the original colors of feathers in some fossil birds and dinosaurs may be flawed
  • In modern birds, black, brown, and some reddish-brown colors are produced by tiny granules of the pigment melanin
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • These features—called melanosomes—are preserved in many fossil feathers, and their precise size and shape have been used to reconstruct the original colors of fossil feathers.
  • had no idea whether melanosomes could survive the fossilisation process intact
  • experiments show that this is not the case. Our results cast a cautionary light on studies of fossil feather color and suggest that some previous reconstructions of the original plumage colors of fossils may not be accurate
  • experimental technique pioneered in the group's recent study on the colors of fossil insects
  • simulated high pressures and temperatures that are found deep under the Earth's surface
  • team used feathers of different colors and from different species, but the geometry of the melanosomes in all feathers changed during the experiments
  • This study will lead to better interpretations of the original plumage colors of diverse feathered dinosaurs and fossil birds
Mars Base

Microbes May Slim Us Down After Gastric Bypass - ScienceNOW - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...robiomes-surgical-weight-.html

scibyte88 WeightLoss

shared by Mars Base on 28 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • In many people with type 2 diabetes, the disease vanishes almost immediately after surgery, too quickly to be explained by the gradual weight loss that happens later
  • Patients also describe not being as hungry, or craving foods like salad that they hadn't liked much before
  • Because it bypasses part of the stomach and small intestine, the surgery alters the intestinal environment, changing elements such as pH and bile concentrations
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  • Another important question
  • is whether the transplants will have the same effect in animals who weren't raised in a sterile environment and who already have their own gut microbiome
  • These animals would more closely mimic people undergoing gastric bypass surgery
Mars Base

A new way to lose weight? Study shows that changes to gut microbiota may play role in w... - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...-gut-microbiota-role-loss.html

scibyte88 WeightLoss

shared by Mars Base on 28 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • by colonizing mice with the altered microbial community, the mice were able to maintain a lower body fat, and lose weight – about 20% as much as they would if they underwent surgery
  • New research
  • has found that the gut microbes of mice undergo drastic changes following gastric bypass surgery
  • ...28 more annotations...
  • In some ways we were biasing the results against weight loss
  • the mice used in the study hadn't been given a high-fat, high-sugar diet to increase their weight beforehand
  • The question is whether we might have seen a stronger effect if they were on a different diet
  • finding ways to manipulate microbial populations to mimic those effects could become a valuable new tool to address obesity
  • study suggests that the specific effects of gastric bypass on the microbiota contribute to its ability to cause weight loss
  • need to learn a good deal more about the mechanisms by which a microbial population changed by gastric bypass exert its effects,
  • then we need to learn if we can produce these effects – either the microbial changes or the associated metabolic changes – without surgery
  • it may be years before they could be replicated in humans, and that such microbial changes shouldn't be viewed as a way to lose
  • pounds without going to the gym
  • the technique may one day offer hope to dangerously obese people who want to lose weight without going through the trauma of surgery.
  • may not be that we will have a magic pill that will work for everyone who's slightly overweight
  • But if we can, at a minimum, provide some alternative to gastric bypass surgery that produces similar effects, it would be a major advance
  • While there had been hints that the microbes in the gut might change after bypass surgery, the speed and extent of the change came as a surprise to the research team
  • In earlier experiments, researchers had shown that the guts of both lean and obese mice are populated by varying amounts of two types of bacteria
  • When mice undergo gastric bypass surgery, however, it "resets the whole picture
  • those changes occurred within a week of the surgery, and weren't short-lived – the altered gut microbial community remained stable for months afterward
  • the results may hold out the hope for weight loss without surgery
  • future studies are needed to understand exactly what is behind the weight loss seen in mice
  • A major gap in our knowledge is the underlying mechanism linking microbes to weight loss
  • certain microbes
  • found at higher abundance after surgery,
  • think those are good targets for beginning to understand what's taking place
  • the answer may not be the specific types of microbes, but a by-product they excrete.
  • In addition to changes in the microbes found in the gut, researchers found changes in the concentration of certain short-chain fatty acids
  • Other studies
  • have suggested that those molecules may be critical in signaling to the host to speed up metabolism, or not to store excess calories as fat.
  • hope to continue to explore those questions
  • such studies will allow us to understand how host/microbial interactions in general can influence the outcome of a given diet
Mars Base

Speed Of Light In Vacuum Is Not Actually Constant, Study Finds | Popular Science - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...um-varies-slightly-study-finds

scibyte88 Speed-of-Light

shared by Mars Base on 28 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Mars Base on 28 Mar 13
     
    Speed Of Light In Vacuum
Mars Base

New Type of Star Explosion Discovered | Type Iax Supernovas | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/upernovas-star-explosions.html

scibyte88 Supernova

shared by Mars Base on 27 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • It remains unclear what precisely happens
  • The helium in the companion star's outer shell might undergo nuclear fusion, blasting a shock wave at the white dwarf that makes it detonate
  • On the other hand, all the helium the white dwarf accumulated from its companion star could alter the density and temperature of the white dwarf's interior, forcing carbon, oxygen and maybe helium within the star to fuse, triggering an explosion
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • No Type Iax supernovas have been seen so far in elliptical galaxies, which are filled with old stars
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