Video of an alien solar system
There is a star in the constellation of Pegasus that is 129 light years from Earth. It’s a young star, a mere 50 million years old (cf the sun is 4.5 billion years old (ish) This star, HR 8799, has planets, hot planets far bigger than Jupiter and Saturn that swing around it in vast orbits.
Scientists at the National Research Council of Canada’s Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics collected data from this distant solar system over the last few years and Jason Wang at the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) made the images into a “video”. You are looking at another solar system. This warrants an OMG...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - January 27, 2017 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science Source Type: blogs
The origins of the cappuccino
I had, without Googling, always assumed that the word cappuccino simply meant “little head” in Italian. Capo being head and the suffix making it a diminutive form. However, my BFF Tim Lihoreau suggested the etymology was more involved, having heard Inky Fool Mark Forsyth discuss Capuchin monks (on The Museum of Curiosity recently) and the colour of their robes and how that gave rise to the name of the beverage. That etymology is mentioned in many places, but I think it’s partly deceived wisdom.
There has to be some sort of connection, but this sounds contrived, reverse engineered, like those tales o...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - January 27, 2017 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science Source Type: blogs
Up close and personal with the birds
Silly big zoom lens on my camera lets you get up close and personal with the garden birds…and even a heron that landed on a neighbour’s fish pond: (Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science)
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - January 23, 2017 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science Source Type: blogs
Fox and pheasant
We took a bracing and frosty walk with the dog on Sunday morning, ended up walking about 5.5 miles (that was Mrs Sciencebase’s plot, I got 5.7 miles), took us about 2.5 hours but lots of stopping to chat to other dogwalkers and friends along the way and to take photographs.
Within 20 minutes of setting off we’d spotted a distant fox in the field on the west side of Rampton Road. The fox appeared to be snuffling around in the grass, perhaps munching on a few insects and grubs. It didn’t seem to notice the pheasant which ran straight in front of it after the bird heard my distant camera shutter. It wasnR...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - January 22, 2017 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science Source Type: blogs
I'm actually going to do an experiment!
Last week I went to Philadelphia, to give a talk and spend a few days working with the former postdoc on the toxin-antitoxin manuscript. This manuscript has a former Honours student as first author; it's has been languishing for most of the past two years, with a few spurts of progress.Until now we have been thinking that the toxin protein was not broadly toxic to cells, but somehow only prevented them from taking up DNA. How it could do this was very puzzling, because our RNAseq analyses showed that the competence gene transcript levels reached normal levels under competence-inducing conditions.The main eviden...
Source: RRResearch - January 17, 2017 Category: Molecular Biology Authors: Rosie Redfield Source Type: blogs
From Paintshop Pro to Photoshop to Paint.net and back to PSP
Years ago I used Paintshop Pro as a lightweight alternative to Photoshop, then I got turned to Photoshop (I had a legit copy of version 2!) but later abandoned it for other programs such as paint.net. Unfortunately, that application never quite cut the mustard in terms of creating masks nor feathering selections
So, I started to look for an alternative and discovered that PSP had been resurrected and is now sold by Corel as version X9, so I gave that a try and so far does what I need it to do with none of the massive CPU and RAM overhead of Photoshop and it starts within seconds rather than taking a minute…
I found a...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - January 16, 2017 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science Source Type: blogs
Does hotter water freeze faster than cold?
It sounds like #deceivedwisdom, but there are lots of reputable scientists who believe the Mpemba effect wherein hot water freezes faster than cold water is real. Youtube was replete with videos of people fling pans of boiling water into Canada’s freezing winter air to make clouds of “snow” and their friends with cold water attempting the same and simply getting a puddle in the snow. That effect is probably more to do with rapid evaporation and crystallisation than the Mpemba effect, but it makes for a great show nevertheless.
A couple of years ago, I believe The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) ran a co...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - January 12, 2017 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science Source Type: blogs
Winter halo around the moon
There was a gorgeous winter halo around the pre-full moon last night. The near 22° halo is an optical phenomenon occurs as moonlight is refracted by millions of ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. The halo is large with a radius approximately the size of an outstretched hand at arm’s length. As light passes through the 60° apex angle of the hexagonal ice crystals it is refracted twice resulting in deviation angles ranging from 22° to 50°. The angle of minimum deviation is almost 22° (21.84° on average; 21.54° for red light and 22.37° for blue light).
If you look carefully at a winter halo, you can some...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - January 12, 2017 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science Source Type: blogs
Freakonomics - Three Episode Podcast on Evidence-Based Medicine
I always enjoy the Freakonomics podcast. Their most recently relevant podcast is a three-parter on evidenced-based medicine. Perhaps not super informative for those familiar with the topic but it is entertaining as always.Part IPart IIPart III (Source: Bayblab)
Source: Bayblab - January 5, 2017 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Rob Source Type: blogs
What Facebook knows about your photos
Have you ever wondered what Facebook thinks of your photos…here’s a simple trick to find out courtesy of my friend Amit Agarwal’s Digital Inspiration blog.
First, in the Google Chrome browser, open any photograph on the Facebook website and click the thumbnail to view the enlarged version of the image. Next, right-click the image and choose “Inspect” which will open the Chrome Dev Tools.
Take a look at the “alt” for the image tag and you’ll see a description that Facebook added based on what it perceives as the photo’s content. I tried it on a photo of a wet, sunlit swan I...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - January 3, 2017 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science Source Type: blogs
Real time blood glucose levels on Apple Watch
Discussion " on Storify]
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This is from the "Tree of Life Blog"
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.
-------- (Source: The Tree of Life)
Source: The Tree of Life - December 31, 2016 Category: Microbiology Authors: Jonathan Eisen Source Type: blogs
What to do with old Knome exome data ...
A little discussion from Twitter More coming but thought I would post this[View the story "Old Knome Exome Data - what to do with it?" on Storify]
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This is from the "Tree of Life Blog"
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.
-------- (Source: The Tree of Life)
Source: The Tree of Life - December 31, 2016 Category: Microbiology Authors: Jonathan Eisen Source Type: blogs
Embodied Knowledge
Last January Iwrote on this blog that our linguistic “understanding is sensual, not an abstract mentalese.” So naturally I am pleased to end this year by discussing a chapter in a new book that defends the same proposition. The book,Embodiment in Evolution and Culture, includes a chapter byThomas Fuchs entitled, “The Embodied Development of Language,” (availablehere) and is part of a movement to rid the cognitive social sciences of their dependence on symbols and ethereal meanings. They emphasize the physical body and the things we learn from actions and sensations.Bodies are unimportant to computers. It does not m...
Source: Babel's Dawn - December 28, 2016 Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Blair Source Type: blogs
Japanese manga STEM girls
Ana Verissimo of the University of Leicester is mashing up her love of Japanese art with a passion for science with the launch of a new series of manga characters.
‘STEM Heroes’ follows the adventures of four high school girls using their amazing STEM skills – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – in order to solve mysteries and save the day. Verissimo has tested the characters on pupils at a high school in Japan with positive results.
“So far, the reaction has been very positive, the girls love the characters’ looks and individual skills. Mari loves biology and genetics (and cake!), Ju...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - December 22, 2016 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science Source Type: blogs
A better year
Is it just me or do you feel it’s been a truly bitter-sweet year, there have been many highs but far too many lows?
A Better Year by Dave Bradley
A Better Year
When life takes a turn for the worse,
the worst it could ever be
And you yearn for something to quench that thirst
There’s a chance that you’ll fail to see
Are you still hoping for a silent night?
Are you still open to love’s shining light?
There are no signs, but there’s a warning
This is our time, no time for mourning
One thing it seems is very clear
Right now, we’re hoping for a better year
Are you? Are you?
Are you? Well, ...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - December 19, 2016 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science Source Type: blogs
