Image credit: Cern -simulated data modeled for the CMS particle detector

Though it has yet to be confirmed to a degree which constitutes scientific certainty, last years discovery of what is believed to the higgs bosan- the final fundamental particle described by the standard model, and the one believed to be responsible for imparting all regular matter with mass-  has brought with it  a number of new scientific possibilities. One of them, according to physicist Joseph Lykken, while speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), is that the entire universe might exist within an unstable vacuum; one which could potentially someday reorganize itself into a more stable state. Which would be bad for anything existing in the current one. Which probably won't be much, anyway.Seriously, we're all gonna be long dead when and if any of this happens. So it's okay to think it's cool.

According to Dr Lykken, via BBC News:

"It turns out there's a calculation you can do in our Standard Model of particle physics, once you know the mass of the Higgs boson," - "If you use all the physics we know now, and you do this straightforward calculation - it's bad news." - "What happens is you get just a quantum fluctuation that makes a tiny bubble of the vacuum the Universe really wants to be in. And because it's a lower-energy state, this bubble will then expand, basically at the speed of light, and sweep everything before it,"

As best as I understand all of this. One of the debated physical properties of the universe in which we all live, is that the vacuum in which said universe exists, is not as stable as it could be. The notion that this instability is one of the physical properties of our current universe, isn't a new one. But determining weather or not this theory is true, is all based on a calculation involving the frequency of the higgs' own mass, versus that of the top quark's pole mass, amongst other things. If our current understandings of those measurements and calculations hold true, then it's possible that at some point in the distant future - as in, an incomprehensibly long time from now-  a fluctuation within the field which maintains said vacuum, could cause it to re-align itself into a more stable state. Meaning; The universe in which we currently live, will be no more. Which sounds bad. But, again, you're gonna be dead anyway. So don't worry too much about that. Besides which, the calculations described by DR. Lykken also bring with them another possibility: What if the end, is really just the beginning?

"It's much easier to explain a lot of things if what we see is a cycle. If I were to bet my own money on it, I'd bet the cyclic idea is right," - Dr.Joseph Lykken [BBC] 

Potential evidence of successive big bangs/Gurzadyan and R. Penrose

In other words, there have been a number of theories over the years which propose the idea that our universe is cyclical. And some have even argued that there is physical evidence which supports them. Most notably, maps of our universe's cosmic background radiation, which some have interpreted as containing rings of radiation consistent with remnants of a previous -possibly even multiple- big bang(s).[SEE: eternal inflation and bubble collision ]. So if this whole quantum vacuum bubble thing turns out to be true, it could be a strong indication that the universe we currently live in, is just one of many iterations in a potentially endless series. Then again, future measurements of the proposed higgs particle could invalidate all these things -cause that's just how theoretical physics works. Either way, I certainly can't proclaim to understand all of this well enough to speculate as to weather or not it really does lend any further validity to the idea of a cyclical universe. I just thought it was something fun to think about. Which is kind of all this blog is really about.


Source: BBC News  
Image Credit: Cern , Gurzadyan and R. Penrose

In this week's episode, our collective uber-ADD was in full effect. So Tara and I manage to make our way to everything from Spontaneous human combustion, UFO's and paranormal beliefs, to TMNT remakes, future technology, as well as a few other things. All in all, I think it's a fun episode. If you agree, why not Subscribe on iTunes ? Also, I had a sudden burst of inspiration during production. So those of you who make it past the outro music, will be handsomely rewarded. Well, reward might not be the right word. let's just say, something lurks just beyond the closing credits this week, and leave it at that....

In This Weeks Episode: We begin with a brief mention of Mississippi's recent decision to finally ratify the 13th amendment - I make up for last week's Pope song with a bit of wholesome x-tian rap - A Texas man does his best to make a Horseman baby - while a Florida man earns a fine for harassing (not a euphemism)  a baby manatee - an Oklahoma man spontaneously combusted, or not (not) - And Tara discovers the looming Michael Bay TMNT remake - Physicists learn to make ghosts - google glasses are finally starting to look cool - a Russian man gets caught cheating via street view- as well as a few other things along the way.

Our Favorite Things: Tara recommends the website insidedish.com, which allows  restaurant workers to rate their employer. For my pick, I've chosen to recommend Ray Kurzweil's most recent book " How To Create a mind, the secrete to human thought revealed."

Though a number of new artificial limbs have been developed which can be controlled by the brain through both direct and indirect neural interfaces -either by being wired directly into the patient's nervous system or by monitoring electrical fluctuations in the brain via an external controller or interface. Figuring out how to integrate artificial systems directly into the human nervous system to allow for communication both to and from such devices and the brain, remains a difficult problem to resolve. Which is why as exceptional a thing as they still are, even the most advanced modern prosthetic devices are typically capable of delivering either control or sensation, but not both.

One of the promising looking attempts to overcome the current limitation of advanced prosthetic replacements, are experiments being conducted by a Swedish research group called  École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).  Having already had significant success with previous devices, the EPFL now has plans to fit an unnamed man from Rome, with an advanced robotic hand which they described as the first ever to deliver real-time sensory feedback, directly through the recipient's own nervous system.

The planned procedure -which is set to happen later this year in Switzerland-  follows the success of an earlier portable version of the hand that was tested In 2009, on a man who suffered the loss of half of one of his arms in an auto accident. After being temporarily fitted with this earlier version of the device, xxx was reportedly able to manipulate and grasp objects with his new hand, as well as being able to feel the sensation of needles pricked into it's palm. All that despite this earlier version of the prosthetic having only two sensory zones. The current model is capable of transmitting sensory feedback from all of it's fingertips, as well as it's palm and wrist, potentially providing a much more life-like feeling for it's recipient.

According to Dr. Silvestro Micera, who is Head of the Translational Neural Engineering Laboratory at EPFL and Professor at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Italy, the newest version of the device will be attached directly into the patient’s nervous system via electrodes clipped onto the median and ulnar nerves in the arm. The expectation is that this method of attachment should allow for a bidirectional flow of information between the prosthetic and the patient's brain, enabling it's recipient to control the device by thought, while simultaneously receiving tactile sensations from the prosthetic itself, and all in real time.


-CAINE-

Source: independent.co.uk


Speaking of neural computer interfaces. In the above Ted Talk, brain-machine interface scientist Miguel Nicolelis, discusses his own on going research into the science behind said interfaces, using a monkey named Aurora.

As you are likely well aware -because unlike me, you exist in the same time frame as most other people in the world- a large meteor went streaking across the sky in Russia early Friday morning (FEB 15th). The object is not believed to have been directly related to the much more massive -150 feet (45 meters) wide- asteroid 2012 AD14, which passed within about 17,000 miles of Earth later the same day, without incident.

NASA has estimated the size of the object over Russia, at 50-55 feet across, and 7,000 -10,000 tons, and that it was traveling somewhere in the range of 40,000 MPH, when it exploded. The blast created as the meteor impacted with the Earth's atmosphere is estimated to have been the equivalent of a 470-kiloton explosion, and managed to cause sever damage to a Zinc processing plant, as well as shattering windows throughout the city of Chelyabinsk, injuring about 1000 people. The incident is being described as the most significant of it's kind since the Tunguska event of 1908, in which an unknown object - possibly a small comet - exploded over the Russian wilderness, leveling trees for several hundred square miles. 

There are obviously LOADS of videos and pictures available of the incident. Of the two I've chosen to post, the one above is sort of a compilation, which includes bits from many of the most popular videos, along with some stuff I hadn't seen from security cameras, as well as footage of some of the damage caused by the blast. The one below, I choose because it captures the gap between the object's passing, and the sound of the explosion itself. Which, as you'll see, happens a considerably long time after the object has disappeared from view, illustrating just how fast it was actually traveling.


-CAINE-

Source: All of the Internets 
  

 

Image: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage) and N.S. van der Bliek (NOAO/AURA/NSF) [high-resolution] Read NOAO Conditions of Use before downloading

Caption: NOAO

This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic II camera on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory on January 11th, 2012. It shows a portion of the giant Monceros R2 molecular cloud. It is a location of massive star formation, particularly in the location of the bright red nebula just below the center of the image. The image was generated with observations in the Sulphur [SII] (blue) and Hydrogen-Alpha (red) filters. In this image, north is to the right, and east is up.

Recording this week's episode of My Favorite Show was... an adventure. Unfortunately, it was an adventure primarily involving the frustration of lousy internet connections and dropped Skype calls. So, ultimately, we weren't quite able to get to all of the things we would have liked to this week. But, all things considered, I think it's still an entertaining episode. Hopefully you will agree, and reward our efforts by Subscribing on iTunes. Or not. In which case, you're dead to me. DEAD, you hear me. DEAD!

In This Week's Episode: Tara shares her encounter with a mysterious dive bombing plane - I enjoy the sweet sounds of people screaming bloody murder in the streets of Switzerland - there's a brawl at a baby shower - A teacher marries the 15 year old student she molested to avoid jail - an assault victim sues Match.com for not warning her strangers on the internet could be dangerous -A Tampa family sues the Cult of Scientology for fraud - a Catholic organization declares that fetuses are not children to avoid a lawsuit- a night of dropped Skype calls drives me to a Comcast rant- and a few other things.

Our Favorite Things: Tara manages to procure a new digital camera, while I'm still all worked up over the idea of quadruple helix DNA.

Because I love this:

 -CAINE-

Digital rendering of the "crystal structure of parallel quadruplexes from human telomeric DNA." (Image credit: Wikipedia Commons)

So here's an unbelievably fascinating and cool thing that I had no idea was actually a thing: quadruple-Helix DNA, or G-quadruplexes.

As I have attempted to make clear many times in the past, I know nothing. Meaning, I have no scientific education or expertise beyond the trivial bits of knowledge I learned in school, and the things I have managed to shove into my own brain over the years. But, obviously, I have a thing for science. And my interest in biology and genetics ranks just behind my fascination with all of the various forms of physics in the world. So usually I could at least say; Oh ya. That's a thing I heard about before, but wound up loosing somewhere in the background noise of my brain. But other than some vague recollections of futurist postulations about potentially engineering such a thing, or speculations about the genetics of as of yet unknown alien species, this time around- I got nothin. So my first thought upon reading the headlines "Quadruple helix DNA found in humans" was- well, that can't possibly be right. And, as is often the case, if you took the headline to mean the same thing I did anyway, it isn't what you think.

As you (hopefully) already know, DNA is the molecule which carries the genetic instructions that make you what you are. Fish, sheep, person, plant, virus, we all become what we become, because our DNA tells us too.  DNA itself, is built from the pairing of four base chemicals, adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). Once bonded together, these base pairs in turn attach themselves to a sugar molecule and a phosphate molecule, to form a nucleotide. Those nucleotides are in turn strung together along a sugar-phosphate backbone, forming the typical double stranded sequence of genetic information that is our DNA. Because these chemical bases always form specific parings -A to t and C to G- that means, that as long as either side of the helix is copied during cell division etc, the other half can always be replicated.

It's all admittedly more complicated than that, obviously. But for our purposes here, I think that description pretty well illustrates why one might find the notion of 4 stranded DNA sequences... Surprising. Because, it's this redundancy of the double helix structure of our genetic code, that gives DNA superiority over it's likely predecessor RNA, as a means of successfully replicating complex biological sequences. So, taking all of the above into consideration. What the hell then is a quadruple helix? And what does IT do?

Previously seen only under laboratory conditions, a paper just published in the journal Nature Chemistry, based on a study conducted by scientists at the University of Cambridge, describes the first identification of these structures within human cancer cells. Unlike the double helix which controls our genetic development, G-quadruplexes appear to be non-coding genetic structures built from four guanine bases, which join together to form a square planar structure called a guanine tetrad.

Obviously, little is yet known for certain about the absolute purpose and function of these genetic structures. But The findings of the study seem to indicate a correlation between high concentrations of G-quadruplexes, and the process of cell division and replication; a theory which is supported by the finding that these structures appear more likely to occur in the genes of rapidly dividing cells, such as cancer. If their apparent genetic function proves true, researchers hope that removing the structures could potentially turn off the ceaseless replication that occurs within cancer cells, and experiments have already begun using specific molecules to isolate and capture the structures, so that they can do exactly that.

So, if like me, your initial reaction upon reading a headline containing the phrase "quadruple helix DNA" was to immediately start wondering about chromosome counts, evolutionary origins, and what not. First- we both REALLY need to get out more. Second, try not to be too disappointed. Because, while the actual nature of G-quadruplets is, admittedly, not as exciting as discovering an entirely new structure of DNA, potentially curing cancer is pretty good too, I think. And it' still undeniably cool, either way.

-CAINE-

Sources: Nature Chemistry, Phys.org

Image: T. A. Rector/University of Alaska Anchorage, H. Schweiker/WIYN  and NOAO/AURA/NSF [high-resolution]

Caption: NOAO

nformally known as the "Soap Bubble Nebula", this planetary nebula (officially known as PN G75.5+1.7) was discovered by amateur astronomer Dave Jurasevich on July 6th, 2008. It was noted and reported by Keith Quattrocchi and Mel Helm on July 17th, 2008. This image was obtained with the Kitt Peak Mayall 4-meter telescope on June 19th, 2009 in the H-alpha (orange) and [OIII] (blue) narrowband filters. In this image, north is to the left and east is down.

PN G75.5+1.7 is located in the constellation of Cygnus, not far from the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888). It is embedded in a diffuse nebula which, in conjunction with its faintness, is the reason it was not discovered until recently. The spherical symmetry of the shell is remarkable, making it very similar to Abell 39.
 :

Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/University of Leicester[high-resolution]

Caption: Cassini Solstice team

This false-color composite image, constructed from data obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, shows the glow of auroras streaking out about 1,000 km (600 miles) from the cloud tops of Saturn's south polar region. It is among the first images released from a study that identifies images showing auroral emissions out of the entire catalogue of images taken by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer.

In this image constructed from data collected in the near-infrared wavelengths of light, the auroral emission is shown in green. The data represents emissions from hydrogen ions in of light between 3 and 4 microns in wavelength. In general, scientists designated blue to indicate sunlight reflected at a wavelength of 2 microns, green to indicate sunlight reflected at 3 microns and red to indicate thermal emission at 5 microns. Saturn's rings reflect sunlight at 2 microns, but not at 3 and 5 microns, so they appear deep blue. Saturn's high altitude haze reflects sunlight at both 2 and 3 microns, but not at 5 microns, and so it appears green to blue-green. The heat emission from the interior of Saturn is only seen at 5 microns wavelength in the spectrometer data, and thus appears red. The dark spots and banded features in the image are clouds and small storms that outline the deeper weather systems and circulation patterns of the planet. They are illuminated from underneath by Saturn's thermal emission, and thus appear in silhouette.

The composite image was made from 65 individual observations by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer on 1 November 2008. The observations were each six minutes long.

THEY'VE GONE PLAID!

If you've been paying any attention to me at all over the past few years then it should come as absolutely no shock to you whatsoever, to learn that I have often tried to work out for myself exactly what one would see if traveling at light speed towards an object. Why? Because that just happens to be the kind of thing I think sounds like a good time. But if you never have before now, think about it for a minute... Did sci-fi get it right with their streaking star fields? Or would the objects in front of you appear to freeze in place, the way physicists have described an object passing over the event horizon of a black whole would look to an outside observer? Would the viewer's apparent horizon stretch and blur into a blinding white light? Would visible objects just disappear altogether, leaving a seemingly empty black field in it's place? Or maybe something else entirely, that I've forgotten to mention? Either way, if those don't all seem like interesting things to ponder to you, well, I just don't know what else to say. I know what I think about it, and it seems as though I'm mostly correct this time around- though not entirely for the right reasons. But as I've said many times before, I'm WAY not qualified to speculate scientifically about anything. But hankfully, I'm not the only one who wonders about these sorts of things. And most of the people who do, are usually actual physicists- or at least in the process of becoming actual physicists. Which is why  four students from the University of Leicester recently put their actual knowledge and education to the question of what it might look like to travel at light speed, and here's what they came up with.

Via: Gizmag.com:

Traveling Through Hyperspace. Image: University of Leicester

" The fourth year physics students – Riley Connors, Katie Dexter, Joshua Argyle, and Cameron Scoular – say that the crew wouldn’t see star lines stretching out past the ship during the jump to hyperspace, but would actually see a central disc of bright light. This is due to the Doppler effect, specifically the Doppler blue shift, that results in the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation, including visible light, shortening as the source of the light moves towards the observer.

As the spaceship makes the jump to hyperspace, the wavelength of the light from the stars would shift out of the visible spectrum into the X-ray range. Meanwhile, Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR), which is thermal radiation that is spread fairly uniformly across the universe and is thought to be left over from the Big Bang, would shift into the visible spectrum, appearing to the crew as a central disc of bright light.

“If the Millennium Falcon existed and really could travel that fast, sunglasses would certainly be advisable,” said Connors. “On top of this, the ship would need something to protect the crew from harmful X-ray radiation.” "

So basically, what you'd see -assuming you could look out a window in the first place, which seems inadvisable given the torrents of amplified thermal radiation pounding against your vessel, but if you could. Odds are you'd see something like the representation above. By which I mean the still black and white one not the gif, that's from Spaceballs; there's probably not a lot of plaid in hyper space

But even if the truth about traveling at light speed isn't as interesting as you might like it to be, aesthetically speaking. It's still a pretty awesome thing to try and imagine; stars streaming at you so quickly that they all soon disappear from view behind a wall of white hot light. Not to mention the astounding distances you'd be traveling while they do it. And more importantly. Knowing, not only what traveling through hyper space might look like, but also what it would mean for the levels of deadly microwave radiation bombarding any ship traveling through it, are just two more examples to add to the already lengthy list of reasons for us all to stop and acknowledge Star Trek's superiority to Star Wars. Since it's now obvious that Luke, Han, and the gang, would clearly have been cooked like potatoes through those 70's party-van style portholes on the Millenium Falcon. While Kirk, Picard and the rest, would have been just fine observing the universe on an advanced view-screen from the comfort and safety of their shielded Starship.

And isn't that what REALLY matters?

I think it is.



 -CAINE-

 Source: Gizmag.com
  

Though I would have been even happier if it was one long sit down between the two of them, I am indescribably happy that this conversation, between these two people, exists.

-CAINE-

There WILL be gifs. Oh, yes- There WILL be gifs.

Seriously though, I'm making gifs.

-CAINE-

Image Credit: Artist’s impression of an active volcano on Venus. Credit: ESA/AOES

Earlier this month, the ESA's Venus Express, which has been orbiting Venus since 2006, detected fluctuations in the sulfur dioxide content of the planet's upper atmosphere, which could potentially indicate the presence of volcanic activity on it's surface. As usual, taken on their own, the probe's findings are inconclusive, and a variety of other phenomena could also be responsible for the fluctuation; including regular but, as of yet undefined anomalies, within the circulatory patterns of Venus' atmosphere. But taken along with various other scientific observations made of the planet over the years, they do seem to reinforce the widely held view that Venus' surface could still very well be rich with volcanic activity.

Source: Red Orbit

On This Week's Episode: Parents jailed for shaving daughters head and making her wear a diaper on it in public - Mcdonalds trades playgrounds for seating areas and the myth of Non-decomposing fast food - News from NASA's Curiosity rover - cancer and body modifications - and how to use more than 10% of your brain, Spoiler alert: You already do - And why science and critical thinking matters-

Our Favorite things for the week: Tara recommends the FX show Wilfred; while I  (once again) geek out over one of my personal obsessions, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and the Millenium series.


As always, if you like the show, please support it by subscribing on iTunes.

-CAINE-

Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/ASI

"Scientists with NASA's Cassini mission have spotted what appears to be a miniature, extraterrestrial likeness of Earth's Nile River: a river valley on Saturn's moon Titan that stretches more than 200 miles (400 kilometers) from its "headwaters" to a large sea. It is the first time images have revealed a river system this vast and in such high resolution anywhere other than Earth.

Scientists deduce that the river, which is in Titan's north polar region, is filled with liquid hydrocarbons because it appears dark along its entire length in the high-resolution radar image, indicating a smooth surface.
"Though there are some short, local meanders, the relative straightness of the river valley suggests it follows the trace of at least one fault, similar to other large rivers running into the southern margin of this same Titan sea," said Jani Radebaugh, a Cassini radar team associate at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. "Such faults – fractures in Titan's bedrock -- may not imply plate tectonics, like on Earth, but still lead to the opening of basins and perhaps to the formation of the giant seas themselves."

Titan is the only other world we know of that has stable liquid on its surface. While Earth's hydrologic cycle relies on water, Titan's equivalent cycle involves hydrocarbons such as ethane and methane. In Titan's equatorial regions, images from Cassini's visible-light cameras in late 2010 revealed regions that darkened due to recent rainfall. Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer confirmed liquid ethane at a lake in Titan's southern hemisphere known as Ontario Lacus in 2008.

"Titan is the only place we've found besides Earth that has a liquid in continuous movement on its surface," said Steve Wall, the radar deputy team lead, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This picture gives us a snapshot of a world in motion. Rain falls, and rivers move that rain to lakes and seas, where evaporation starts the cycle all over again. On Earth, the liquid is water; on Titan, it's methane; but on both it affects most everything that happens."

The radar image here was taken on Sept. 26, 2012. It shows Titan's north polar region, where the river valley flows into the sea called Ligeia Mare. The real Nile River stretches about 4,100 miles (6,700 kilometers). The processes that led to the formation of Earth's Nile are complex, but involve faulting in some regions.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and ASI, the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the US and several European countries. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena."

This portrait of Stephan’s Quintet, also known as the Hickson Compact Group 92, was taken by the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Stephan’s Quintet, as the name implies, is a group of five galaxies. The name, however, is a bit of a misnomer. Studies have shown that group member NGC 7320, at upper left, is actually a foreground galaxy that is about seven times closer to Earth than the rest of the group.

Three of the galaxies have distorted shapes, elongated spiral arms, and long, gaseous tidal tails containing myriad star clusters, proof of their close encounters. These interactions have sparked a frenzy of star birth in the central pair of galaxies. This drama is being played out against a rich backdrop of faraway galaxies.

The image, taken in visible and near-infrared light, showcases WFC3’s broad wavelength range. The colours trace the ages of the stellar populations, showing that star birth occurred at different epochs, stretching over hundreds of millions of years. The camera’s infrared vision also peers through curtains of dust to see groupings of stars that cannot be seen in visible light.

Image: NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team [high-resolution]
Caption: Hubble Heritage Team
VIA: Wired Science