-hogwarts:

Our solar systems movement between February 22nd to March 5th, 2011

subhanallah! :)

(Source: yerawizardharry)

scienceside:

A picture began circulating in November. It should be “The Picture of the Year,” or perhaps, “Picture of the Decade.” It won’t be. In fact, unless you obtained a copy of the U.S. paper which published it, you probably would never have seen it.

The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner. The baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother’s womb. Little Samuel’s mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta. She knew of Dr. Bruner’s remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.

During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr. Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon’s finger. Dr. Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile.

The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity. The editors titled the picture, “Hand of Hope.” The text explaining the picture begins, “The tiny hand of 21-week-old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother’s uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life.”

hispanophilia:

The Expanding Light Echo of Red Supergiant Star V838 Monocerotis

V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) is a red variable star in the constellation Monoceros about 20,000 light years (6 kpc) from the Sun, and possibly one of the largest known stars. The previously unknown star was observed in early 2002 experiencing a major outburst. Originally believed to be a typical nova eruption, it was then realized to be something completely different. The reason for the outburst is still uncertain, but several theories have been put forward, including an eruption related to stellar death processes and a merger of a binary star or planets.

Rapidly brightening objects like novae and supernovae are known to produce a phenomenon known as light echo. The light that travels directly from the object arrives first. If there are clouds of interstellar matter around the star, some light is reflected from the clouds. Because of the longer path, the reflected light arrives later producing a vision of expanding rings of light around the erupted object. In addition, the rings appear to travel faster than the speed of light.

In the case of V838 Monocerotis, the light echo produced was unprecedented and is well documented in images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. 

Photos taken: May 20, 2002; September 2, 2002; October 28, 2002; December 17, 2002; February 8, 2004; October 24, 2004

(via elgin-marbles)

carloscoreas:

An oxytocin molecule, the hormone that makes one fall in love.

(via wastedtomorrow)

clearscience:

We mentioned the precious metals, which are a loose association of elements that are metallic, non-radioactive, useful, expensive, and rare. They generally occupy an area of the transition metals on the periodic table. Location in the periodic table has to do with the numbers of protons and electrons that make up an atom, and elements near each other have similar physical and chemical properties.

Silver and gold fall in the same group (column) as copper, which is Group 11 in the new system (and Group IB in the system most of the Clear Science staff grew up with). Sometimes these are called the coinage metals.

Ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum are collectively called the platinum group. This corresponds to Groups 8, 9 and 10 (or VIIIB).

Occasionally you hear some of these metals called “nobel metals” because they are unreactive and resistant to most chemicals. Aqua regia (“royal water”) was so named because it can dissolve platinum and gold, which is a difficult task indeed. 

clearscience:

The other day the Clear Science staff got to talking about expensive things. This lead to consideration of precious metals, which one often thinks of when the word “expensive” comes up. Some of the precious metals everyone knows about:

• Gold
• Silver
• Platinum

But there are others, which you hear about less often: ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, rhenium, osmium, and iridium. Gold, platinum, and silver are used ornamentally because of their beauty, like in wedding rings. However, the high cost of precious metals has more to do with a combination of usefulness and scarcity.

There are entire careers for people who keep track of the going price of these metals and buy and sell them accordingly. A recent list of prices can be found on Wikipedia. Notice how at the end of 2009, the price of rhodium spiked past that of platinum to $88,415 per kilogram, making it the most expensive.

clearscience:

Transparent drink bottles are usually made of the polymer PETE (sometimes just called PET), which is polyethylene terephthalate ester. Chemical names can usually be broken down to understand them.

• Poly means “many,” meaning this structure repeats over and over
• Ethylene is the name for the two carbons, as we saw
• Terephthalate is the structure shown to the left, which is built around a “benzene ring”
• The linkage circled in green is called an ester in organic chemistry

PETE can be molded into complicated shapes using a minimal amount of material. Also it has a nice transparent appearance (meaning there is very little order among the molecules).

Most recycling programs in the United States only deal with codes 1 and 2 (which is HDPE). This is because the other kinds are more difficult to recycle. “More difficult” means it requires too much energy or money. If you become a scientist and invent ways to easily recycle more polymers, you will be providing a great service to the world.

scienceisbeauty:

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 was awarded jointly to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene”

CONGRATULATIONS

Wiki (and image source):

Graphene is a one-atom-thick planar sheet of sp²-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. It can be visualized as an atomic-scale chicken wire made of carbon atoms and their bonds. The name comes from graphite + -ene; graphite itself consists of many graphene sheets stacked together.

Further readings:

PhysOrg.com: Graphene

Boston Area CarbOn Nanoscience (BACON) Meetings

Epitaxial Graphene Lab (Georgia Institute of Technology)

Graphene MURI (funded by the Office of Naval Research)

Graphene Week (University of Maryland)

Graphene Nanoelectronics (University of Delaware)

(via proofmathisbeautiful)

chemicalfreeskinny:

ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMICALS:  LOW-PHOSPHATE DISH-WASHING DETERGENTS MAKE SOME CONSUMERS UNHAPPY

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Cleaner for the Environment, Not for the Dishes

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In the world of cleaning agents, where chemicals and fragrances can pose respiratory and allergy problems as well as pollute waterways, the environmental benefits of the switch are clear. Yet the new products can run up against longtime habits and even cultural concepts of cleanliness.

New York Times

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(CLICK PHOTO)

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Homemade Dishwasher Detergent Recipes

http://tipnut.com/homemade-dishwasher-detergent-recipes/

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