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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 30, 2014 at 8:35am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 29, 2014 at 8:56am

Next battle in the war on science

The GOP Congress is ready to attack science agency funding in 2015.
GOP House members have had little success reining in research agencies so far, but, emboldened by their growing majorities, they’re hoping for better luck next year. They plan to push proposals to cut funding for global warming and social science research, put strict new rules on the National Science Foundation’s grant-making process and overhaul how science informs policy making at the EPA.

At the same time, however, researchers and their advocates in the Democratic caucus are taking increasingly aggressive stances of their own: Rather than answer GOP objections one by one, or brush them off, they’re making a larger issue of what they see as heavy-handed interference based on ideology rather than methodology.
Opponents in the scientific world and their political allies believe that, at its heart, the GOP assault isn’t about bringing greater accountability to the EPA or NSF, but rather a larger lack of trust in science that could soon spur efforts to micromanage NIH, the Department of Defense and other agencies that, all told, spend tens of billions on scientific research every year.

Researchers warn that funding only science that appears politically safe will stifle innovation and say that the agency actually does an impressive job of choosing which projects to fund.
But some in the research community say damage is already being done. Researchers will be less likely to apply for grants to fund unorthodox-sounding now — but potentially groundbreaking — research projects in future years, leaders of the Association of American Universities said recently in a statement.
Scientists and engineers, particularly young ones, should not be discouraged from pursuing unconventional, often groundbreaking scientific research.
More details here:
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/the-next-battle-in-the-war-on...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 29, 2014 at 8:00am

Can DNA survive space travel?

It can , under certain circumstances , shows a new study

Genetic blueprints attached to a rocket survived a short spaceflight and later passed on their biological instructions!

A team of Swiss and German scientists report that they dotted the exterior grooves of a rocket with fragments of DNA to test the genetic material’s stability in space. Surprisingly, they discovered that some of those building blocks of life remained intact during the hostile conditions of the flight and could pass on genetic information even after exiting and reentering the atmosphere during a roughly 13-minute round trip into space.

So, if a cascade of meteors struck Earth billions of years ago, could they have deposited genetic blueprints and forged an indelible link between Earth and another planet?
 
Perhaps. Although that puzzling question remains unanswered, scientists have uncovered a new clue that suggests it is possible for DNA to withstand the extreme heat and pressure it would encounter when entering our atmosphere from space. The findings suggest that if DNA traveled through space on meteorites, it could have conceivably survived, says lead author Oliver Ullrich of the University of Zurich. Moreover, he says, “DNA attached to a spacecraft has the potential to contaminate other celestial bodies, making it difficult to determine whether a life form existed on another planet or was introduced there by spacecraft.” The rocket test may fall short of representing the faster speed and higher energy of a meteor hurtling into our atmosphere, but it does suggest that even if the outside of a meteor was scorched, genetic material in certain places on the meteor could survive higher temperatures than scientists had previously realized and make it to Earth. The researchers were intrigued to find that the DNA looked intact under a microscope in these experiments. They also put some of the samples to work to see if the DNA remained functionally capable of passing on genetic instructions. The team exposed Escherichia coli bacteria to the space-traveling DNA. If the plasmid DNA were intact — as it proved to be — the E. coli would be able to take up the DNA, and that piece of genetic code would make the bacteria resistant to antibiotics. According to Ullrich, the researchers were surprised to find that the DNA passed on its information and the E. coli became drug resistant. The findings are very exciting.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone....

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 29, 2014 at 7:22am

Can sand dunes swallow people?

Yes, they can!

The Mystery of Why This Dangerous Sand Dune Swallowed a Boy

When a boy suddenly disappeared into a sand dune, a scientist embarked on a quest to find out where he went

But dunes aren’t supposed to contain holes  according to science. But this  appears to be a new geological phenomenon!

It might have been covered with quick sand. It was found  that the entire dune had shifted 134 metres away from the lakefront between 1938 and 2007, swallowing up long-forgotten trees, trails and stairs along the way. Four years later, it was revealed that the dune was flattening out, and the sand that facilitated its movement was coming from inside its inland slope - the area that was open to the public. The slope that swallowed the six year old boy. The age of the materials and the wet conditions during the spring of 2013 may have forced these materials to become unstable, collapsing and creating openings to the surface.

Through brute machine force (because it is difficult to dig sand), Nathan, the boy was uncovered in an unconscious state after 3.5 hours of excavation. Somehow, he'd end up surviving the ordeal, and two weeks later, walked out of the hospital. The doctors suspect either an air pocket in the sand hole saved him, or perhaps his body had reacted to the lack of oxygen by drastically slowing down the operation of his vital organs.


 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/mystery-why-dangerous-...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 28, 2014 at 8:32am

Tuesday, 25th November 2014

UNESCO Launches Online Science Education Resource

From UNESCO:

UNESCO launched the UNESCO World Library of Science (WLoS), a newly created, free online science education resource for a global community of users. Developed through the joint efforts of UNESCO, Nature Education and Roche, the WLoS was created to give students around the world, especially those in disadvantaged regions, access to the latest science information as well as the opportunity to share their experiences and learning through discussion with their peers in a shared learning environment.

Launched on the occasion of World Science Day for Peace and Development 2014, the WLoS is a science resource library stocked with over 300 top-quality articles, 25 eBooks, and over 70 videos from the publishers of Nature, the most cited scientific journal in the world. It is also a state-of-the-art digital platform that provides a community hub for learning. Users can join classes, build groups and connect with other learners.

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/about-us/single-view/...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 28, 2014 at 8:28am

Natural shield 11,000 km above Earth stops radiation
Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT) and University of Colorado in Boulder have discovered an invisible shield some 11,000 kms above Earth that works against the harmful radiation belt.
High above Earth's atmosphere, electrons whiz past at close to the speed of light.

Such ultra-relativistic electrons, which make up the outer band of the Van Allen radiation belt, can streak around the planet in a mere five minutes - bombarding anything in their path.
The Van Allen belts are a collection of charged particles - gathered in place by Earth's magnetic field.

Exposure to such high-energy radiation can wreak havoc on satellite electronics and pose serious health risks to astronauts. Rresearchers found no matter where these electrons are circling around the planet's equator, they can get no further than about 11,000 km from the Earth's surface - despite their intense energy. What is keeping this high-energy radiation at bay seems to be neither the Earth's magnetic field nor long-range radio waves but rather a phenomenon termed 'plasmaspheric hiss'.
The phenomenon is described as very low-frequency electromagnetic waves in the Earth's upper atmosphere that, when played through a speaker, resemble static or white noise.

The researchers believe that plasmaspheric hiss essentially deflects incoming electrons causing them to collide with neutral gas atoms in the Earth's upper atmosphere and ultimately disappear.
The paper on which this report is based was published in the journal Nature.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 27, 2014 at 7:32am

Beetle behind breath test for bank notes
Simply breathing on money could soon reveal if it's the real deal or counterfeit thanks to a beetle-inspired ink that reversibly changes colour in response to humidity. The photonic crystal ink developed by Chinese researchers can produce unique colour changing patterns on surfaces with an inkjet printer system, which would be extremely hard for fraudsters to reproduce. The work also shows promise for other applications including displays and wearable sensors.

Ling Bai and Zhongze Gu and colleagues at Southeast University in Nanjing, China, have developed a photonic crystal ink that mimics the way Tmesisternus isabellae – a species of longhorn beetle – reversibly switches its color from gold to red according to the humidity in its environment.

This color shift is caused by the adsorption of water vapour in their hardened front wings, which alters the thickness and average refractive index of their multilayered scales. To emulate this, the team made their photonic crystal ink using mesoporous silica nanoparticles, which have a large surface area and strong vapour adsorption capabilities that can be precisely controlled.

Using the ink in an inkjet printer, the researchers produced complex patterns on rigid and flexible materials and showed that their colour can be reversibly and precisely controlled – shifting from green to red or yellow for example – in response to nitrogen and ethanol vapours. They even saw patterns change colour simply in response to breathing on them.

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/11/beetle-behind-breath-test...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 27, 2014 at 6:47am

India is home to one of the highest proportions of threatened species in the world

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/V5SjMWmLe30Z1c9gr1iqxK/Indias-wild...

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 27, 2014 at 6:36am

Asteroid impacts on Earth may give rise to rare, structurally bizarre diamonds on our planet, a new study suggests.

Scientists have settled a longstanding controversy over a purported rare form of diamond called lonsdaleite - formed by impact shock, but which lacks the three-dimensional regularity of ordinary diamond
A group of scientists has now shown that what has been called lonsdaleite is in fact a structurally disordered form of ordinary diamond.

"So-called lonsdaleite is actually the long-familiar cubic form of diamond, but it's full of defects," said Peter Nemeth, a former Arizona State University (ASU) visiting researcher.

These can occur, he said, due to shock metamorphism, plastic deformation or unequilibrated crystal growth

Scientists said that a large meteorite, called Canyon Diablo after the crater it formed on impact in northern Arizona, contained a new form of diamond with a hexagonal structure.

They described it as an impact-related mineral and called it lonsdaleite, after Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, a famous crystallographer.

Since then, "lonsdaleite" has been widely used by scientists as an indicator of ancient asteroidal impacts on Earth, including those linked to mass extinctions.

In addition, it has been thought to have mechanical properties superior to ordinary diamond, giving it high potential industrial significance.

All this focused much interest on the mineral, although pure crystals of it, even tiny ones, have never been found or synthesised.
Scientists re-examined Canyon Diablo diamonds and investigated laboratory samples prepared under conditions in which lonsdaleite has been reported.

Using the advanced electron microscopes, the team found, both in the Canyon Diablo and the synthetic samples, new types of diamond twins and nanometre-scale structural complexity. These give rise to features attributed to lonsdaleite

"Most crystals have regular repeating structures, much like the bricks in a well-built wall," said Peter Buseck, from the University of Bayreuth in Germany.

However, interruptions can occur in the regularity, and these are called defects.

"Defects are intermixed with the normal diamond structure, just as if the wall had an occasional half-brick or longer brick or row of bricks that's slightly displaced to one side or another," said Buseck.

The outcome of the new work is that so-called lonsdaleite is the same as the regular cubic form of diamond, but it has been subjected to shock or pressure that caused defects within the crystal structure.

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 26, 2014 at 9:20am

Hormone estrogen may shield the brain after an injury
Inflammation goes down when the sex hormone increases around an injury
Estrogen can protect the brain from harmful inflammation following traumatic injury, a new study in zebra finches suggests. Boosting levels of the sex hormone in the brain might help prevent the cell loss that occurs following damage from injuries such as stroke.

Estrogen levels quadrupled around the damaged area in both male and female zebra finches after researchers gave them experimental brain injuries, Colin Saldanha and colleagues at American University in Washington, D.C., reported November 17 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. When the scientists prevented finch brains from making estrogen, inflammatory proteins at damaged sites increased.

The helpful estrogen didn’t come from gonads. It’s made within the brain by support cells called astrocytes close to the injury.

Injury inflames the brain. Initially, this inflammation recruits helpful cells to the damaged area and aids in recovery. But the long-term presence of inflammatory proteins can cause harm, killing off brain cells and reducing functions such as movement and memory. The researchers hope that by understanding how estrogen reduces inflammatory proteins, therapies might boost this natural estrogen production to keep harmful inflammation at bay.
- http://www.abstractsonline.com/Plan/ViewAbstract.aspx?sKey=6a2113dc...

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