Aug
Wealthier populations are more likely to accept evolution
In 2006, Jon Miller et al. released a study titled Public Acceptance of Evolution that compiled the results of an ongoing survey asking people from all over the world to answer “true” or “false” to the following question:
“Human beings as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals”.
While the article itself requires an active subscription to access it, the above cartoon from Calamities of Nature tells you everything you need to know about the results.
In short, as a country’s overall wealth increases so does the percentage of people who accept evolutionary theory. Unless you’re the USA - not so much, in that case.
This is not really a revelation as it is widely understood that an increase in wealth will lead to a more educated, culturally aware population, but it is an interesting statistic that is well-presented.
It also does a nice job of shining a spotlight on the ongoing struggle for rationality in the US.
Jul
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman is streets ahead
What do you do when you have a bunch of physics-related and philosophical questions but there’s no-one to break it down for you? Wouldn’t it be great if you could pop down the street and pay a visit to your local physicist?
Nobel prize winning physicist, Leon Lederman, has heard the call and has been spotted in both New York and Chicago armed with nothing more than a table and chairs (and decades of knowledge and expertise as a career physicist) where he offers to answer all your burning (or combustion-related) questions.
Jun
Earth’s supply of non-renewable resources
How sustainable are we? The BBC have presented this graph illustrating the expected number of years remaining for a number of non-renewable resources including rainforests, oil, and gas.
This is, of course, based on the assumption that we will continue on our current non-sustainable path. Hopefully with the advent of new technologies, education, and awareness we will be able to adequately reduce our consumption while developing suitable alternatives.
How can you help? Become a scientist.
Jun
Graphic science: The Human Microbiome Project
Continuing this week’s microbiome theme, The Wag have provided a easily digestible (yep) illustration that sums up the overall findings of the human microbiome project.
It’s wonderful - head here for the full cartoon.
Jun
How Alzheimer’s spreads throughout the brain
Alzheimer’s disease is an irreversible brain disorder caused by a degeneration of brain tissue and affects up to 40% of people aged 75 to 84 worldwide. It’s a significant disease that often worsens as it progresses and there is currently no known cure.
As a repository of knowledge for the Alzheimer’s community, Alzheimer’s Reading Room have produced this informative video (above) which clearly summarises the neurological foundation and degenerative spread of the disease, and its affects on a person’s memory and senses.
Jun
Biological playing cards
Educate yourself on human anatomy while playing your game of choice!
I want these.
May
Happy Birthday, Electron (Theory)
In celebration of the the 120 year anniversary of “electron theory”, jtotheizzoe has compiled a nice outline of its origin.
Take it away, Joe:
120 years ago this month, Hendrik Lorentz published his landmark paper that laid out the basis for “electron theory”. This was not proof of the electron as a particle, as that didn’t happen until 1897, thanks to J.J. Thomson.
Lorentz took the collected equations of James Clerk Maxwell and distilled their mess into simple rules of charge and motion. It laid the groundwork for Einstein’s special relativity, and allowed fields like materials and electronics to exist.
It was elegant work, a melding of a half century’s worth of varied influences and observations, distilled into simple equations that spawned entirely new fields of physics. A true collaboration of curiosity.
Einstein himself said of Lorentz: “For me personally he meant more than all the others I have met on my life’s journey.”
(via Scientific American. Of course, Lorentz would know that electrons look nothing like what I drew above.)
May
Some Great Facts of Light
Some perspective
Light travels at a speed of 299,792,458 metres per second exactly. No matter how fast you, or the light source is traveling, go try measuring it and you’ll find that this is exactly the case.
At this speed, it takes light:
- 18 milliseconds to travel between London and New York
- 0.13 seconds to circumnavigate the equator of the Earth
- 1.4 seconds to travel to us from the Moon
- 8.4 minutes to travel from the Sun
- 4.15 hours to travel from the Sun to Neptune, the most remote planet in the Solar System
- 17 hours to travel to the current location of Voyager 1, the farthest man made object from Earth
- ~0.8 years to travel from us to the Oort Cloud, a hypothesised spherical cloud of icy comets centered around the Sun, which marks the boundary of the solar system
- 4.2 years to travel to us from Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Sun.
- 1,100 years to travel to us from the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way
- 100,000 years to travel across the whole disc of the galaxy itself
- 2.5 million years to travel to us from the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest neighbour
- 110 million years to travel across the Virgo Supercluster, our small, local little corner of the universe
After this it stops making sense to say “a distance x”, as the expansion of the universe warps our perception of distance on these immense timescales. Therefore, when you hear radio static, 1% of that is said not to originate from a place, but rather a time, roughly 13.5 billion years ago - the cosmic microwave background from the time of recombination at the dawn of the universe.
TL;DR: The universe is big.
(Photo: pretendy)
May
The Leidenfrost Effect
Like how water “dances” across a hot pan, physicists have done something similar by placing liquid oxygen onto a sheet of glass with a small, circular magnet underneath. This causes the oxygen droplets to change its direction of movement, depending on the angle it approaches the magnet at. In the video above, you can see an oxygen droplet floating on its vapour and being deflected by the small moving magnet underneath.
The behaviour of the droplet is due to magnetic fields and a phenomena called the Leidenfrost effect. The Leidenfrost effect occurs when liquid makes contact with a surface significantly hotter than the liquid’s boiling point. This causes the liquid to quickly evaporate, forming an insulating vapour layer, between the liquid and hot surface, that prevents the liquid from rapidly boiling. Therefore, the liquid is able to “dance” across a hot surface.
Bonus: Watch this awesome clip of Jamie and Adam from the MythBusters demonstrating how the Leidenfrost effect prevents a hand from being burned when dipped into molten lead (skip to 4:00 to see Jamie become a human guinea pig). It goes without saying, but do not try this at home!
Credit: K. Piroird et al/Physical Review E 2012
(from Map Me Oblivion)
May
The Diversity of Viruses
Of all the infectious agents, viruses are the most unique and the above image gives a great outline of their diversity. Responsible for many of the most common and serious human diseases, they remarkably remain metabolically inert and lack the ability to replicate on their own.
Structurally, viruses primarily consist of genetic material in the form of DNA or RNA which is protected by a highly ordered cage of proteins, known as the capsid. Some viruses also contain an additional outer envelope or membrane consisting of lipids, or glycoproteins.
The outer surface of the virus enables it to make contact with the outer membrane of a host cell and facilitates its uptake into the cytoplasm. Once there, the virus hijacks the host cell’s machinery enable its replication and the production of viral proteins. Newly replicated viruses are then either released via rupture of the host cell, or the viral genetic material is incorporated into and replicated with the host cell’s genome.
May
Dendritic Cells Activating a Lymphocyte
Here is a beautiful scanning electron micrograph of a human lymphocyte (pink) as it scans the surface of a dendritic cell (blue).
Lymphocytes are white blood cells, of which there are three types: B cells, T cells, and natural killer (NK) cells. Dendritic cells are located in the tissue and are responsible for stimulating the adaptive immune response via the activation of T cells.
About Me
Hi there, I'm Jim: PhD student in the biological sciences, enthusiast, friendly neighbour, Australian.
