Astronomy Domine

In just the past six weeks, two supernovae have flared up in an obscure galaxy in the constellation Hercules. Never before have astronomers observed two of these powerful stellar explosions occurring in the same galaxy so close together in time.

The galaxy, known as MCG +05-43-16, is 380 million light-years from Earth. Until this year, astronomers had never sighted a supernova popping off in this stellar congregation. A supernova is an extremely energetic and life-ending explosion of a star.

Making the event even more unusual is the fact that the two supernovae belong to different types. Supernova 2007ck is a Type II event - which is triggered when the core of a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel and collapses gravitationally, producing a shock wave that blows the star to smithereens. Supernova 2007ck was first observed on May 19.

In contrast, Supernova 2007co is a Type Ia event, which occurs when a white dwarf star accretes so much material from a binary companion star that it blows up like a giant thermonuclear bomb. It was discovered on June 4, 2007. A white dwarf is the exposed core of a star after it has ejected its atmosphere; it's approximately the size of Earth but with the mass of our Sun.

"Most galaxies have a supernova every 25 to 100 years, so it's remarkable to have a galaxy with two supernovae discovered just 16 days apart," says Stefan Immler of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. In 2006 Immler used NASA's Swift satellite to image two supernovae in the elliptical galaxy NGC 1316, but both of those explosions were Type Ia events, and they were discovered six months apart.

The simultaneous appearance of two supernovae in one galaxy is an extremely rare occurrence, but it's merely a coincidence and does not imply anything unusual about MCG +05-43-16. Because the two supernovae are tens of thousands of light-years from each other, and because light travels at a finite speed, astronomers in the galaxy itself, or in a different galaxy, might record the two supernovae exploding thousands of years apart.

Images taken from the Hinode Telescope:

A mysterious shiny coating found on rocks in many of Earth's arid environments could reveal whether there was once life on Mars, according to new research.

The research, published in the July edition of the journal Geology, reveals that the dark coating known as desert varnish creates a record of life around it, by binding traces of DNA, amino acids and other organic compounds to desert rocks. Samples of Martian desert varnish could therefore show whether there has been life on Mars at any stage over the last 4.5 billion years.

Comet Tempel 1, which created a flamboyant Fourth of July fireworks display in space last year, is covered with a small amount of water ice. These results, reported by members of NASA's Deep Impact team in an advanced online edition of Science, offer the first definitive evidence of surface ice on any comet. "We have known for a long time that water ice exists in comets, but this is the first evidence of water ice on comets," said Jessica Sunshine, Deep Impact co-investigator and lead author of the Science article. More information on NASA site

On June 17th, every year, the family goes through a private ritual: we photograph ourselves to stop a fleeting moment, the arrow of time passing by.

read more | digg story

Recently, scientists used data from NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite to analyze transformations that take place inside a hurricane.

The fact that hurricanes can completely re-structure themselves inside, presents forecasters a great uncertainty when predicting their effects on the general population.

These findings will be published in the American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting

50 million U.S. Internet users visited blog sites in the first quarter of 2005. That is 1 in 6 of the total U.S. population. Total internet population spent 13 hours per week online, while blog readers spent 23 hours online per week. "The average blog visitor who bought online spent approximately six percent more than the average online buyer."

read more | digg story

Have you ever wonder what if every chinese eat two eggs at week?

Well, many years ago I was watching The Nature of Things TV Show, and the history of a chinese governmento plan to augment protein in the chinese daily diet.

Very simple, give them 2 eggs at week!

But wait, how many resources are needed for this colossal project?

Well, we need the 8.67 % of the world wheat production!!
Almost twice the canadian wheat production, and 3/4 of USA production!!!

Here are the numbers:

A hen can lays about a 200 - 300 eggs in a year, so we can think a hen can feed 3 chinese people for year.
Chinese population: 1,307,842,645. (source: http://www.cpirc.org.cn/en/eindex.htm and changing)
So we need in a year 8*12*1.307.842.645 = 125,552,893,920 hen eggs!!
And we need 1,307,842,645/3 = 435,947,548 hens!!
In fact, china has 800,000,000 hens!! (source: http://www.vegansociety.com/html/animals/exploitation/hens.php)
A hen can eat about 0.13 Kg of wheat in a day, i.e. 109.5 kilograms in a year.
That leads to a necesity of 47736256542.5 kilograms, or 47,736,256.5 metric tons
The world wheat production is around 550.000.000 metric tons (source: http://www.fao.org)
So we need the the 8.67% of world wheat production.

Those are astronomicals numbers!!!

Once upon a time when three little pigs didn't glow in the dark.
Now, where they can hide?

From BBC News:

Pigs and chickens that glow in the dark may signal a new era for the farm yard.

Transgenic pigs and chickens have been produced at Roslin using lentivectors to carry the green fluorescent protein gene (GFP) - a gene found naturally in jellyfish.
Both chickens and pigs carrying the gene can be detected in normal light by their slight greenish tinge, but when viewed in blue light, all areas not covered with hair or feathers are seen to glow torch-light bright.

In the case of chickens, this is the feet and head; and in pigs, it is the ears, snout, trotters and testicles.

The green fluorescent protein marker gene means we can see instantly if an animal is carrying the gene; there is no need for any biopsies or tests, and as far as we know all of the animals are normal in every other way," said Dr Whitelaw.

 

So with this new technology can detect when animals are normal, or infected with some virus (like asian flu). 

Genes that control the timing of organ formation during development also control timing of aging and death, and provide evidence of a biological timing mechanism for aging.

"Although there is a large variation in lifespan from species to species, there are genetic aspects to the processes of development and aging" "We used the simple, but genetically well-studied, C. elegans worm and found genes that are directly involved in determination of lifespan. Humans have genes that are nearly identical."

Said Frank Slack, associate professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology in an interview for eureka alerts.

A microRNA and the developmental-timing gene it controls, lin-4 and lin-14, affect patterns of cellular development at very specific stages. Slack's group found that mutations in these genes alter both the timing of the worm development stages-- and the worm lifespan.