MIT Battling Cancer Cells With DNA-coated Nanotubes!

At MIT researchers have figured out a way to coat carbon nanotubes with bespoke DNA strands. The DNA-coated 'tubes react differently when they make contact with healthy or cancerous cells, allowing doctors to determine if the chemotherapy is being effective.

So, a minute chunk of basic carbon, mated with a minute chunk of basic human = cancer fighting detecto-bot.

What a miraculous union of humanity and technology!

"We've made a sensor that can be placed in living cells, healthy or malignant, and actually detect several different classes of molecules that damage DNA," said Michael Strano, associate professor of chemical engineering at MIT."

Science! Epic win!

Here is an article from computerworld with more intel.

Teddy bears launch into space

"Four teddy bears, fully decked out in custom-made spacesuits, were launched to the edge of space as part of a British university experiment.

Blasting off from Cambridge University's Churchill College last week, they were attached to a helium balloon and fitted with multiple cameras, a GPS receiver, flight computer and radio for the two-hour nine-minute flight, which saw them rise 30km (18.8 miles) above sea level.

The spacesuits were designed by local schoolchildren, as part of a project to engage youths in science and engineering, organised by the Cambridge University Spaceflight student club."

How sweet is that? I never thought I'd see the day...

Read more here.

Regenerative Medicine: Re-Growing Body Parts

Amazing.

Zapped Into Existence: The 1953 Miller-Urey Experiments

Hola SuperForesters!

Jackson here.

I was just doing some reading up on the ol' Wikipedia and came across a very interesting entry about the '53 Miller-Urey experiments.

Unfamiliar? In a nutshell: In 1953, two scientists named Stanley Miller and Harold Urey performed an experiment at the University of Chicago. The aim of the experiment was to see if non-organic (read: dead) compounds could be coaxed into forming amino acids, which are the building blocks of all proteins (read: life.)

So they built an apparatus that contained some very basic chemicals: "water (H2O), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), hydrogen (H2), and carbon monoxide (CO). The chemicals were all sealed inside a sterile array of glass tubes and flasks connected together in a loop, with one flask half-full of liquid water and another flask containing a pair of electrodes."

Next, "The liquid water was heated to induce evaporation, sparks were fired between the electrodes to simulate lightning through the atmosphere and water vapor, and then the atmosphere was cooled again so that the water could condense and trickle back into the first flask in a continuous cycle."

Got that? Fill a sterile container with some basic chemicals, heat it up, and zap it with electricity.

This was done to re-create conditions like those found on an early version of Earth.

And what happened when they ran the experiment?

"At the end of one week of continuous operation Miller and Urey observed that as much as 10–15% of the carbon within the system was now in the form of organic compounds. Two percent of the carbon had formed amino acids that are used to make proteins in living cells, with glycine as the most abundant. Sugars, lipids, and some of the building blocks for nucleic acids were also formed.

In an interview, Stanley Miller stated: "Just turning on the spark in a basic pre-biotic experiment will yield 11 out of 20 amino acids."

Did y'all get that? Zap a flask of water and you get the structures that can eventually evolve to become plankton, crabs, fish, dinosaurs, Henry Kissinger and the "Leave Britney Alone!" Guy.

What's better is that this experiment has been repeated many times, with the same results. And even better is the fact that just recently, "... a group of scientists examined 11 vials left over from Miller's experiments of the early 1950s. In addition to the classic experiment, reminiscent of Charles Darwin's envisioned "warm little pond", Miller had also performed more experiments, including one with conditions similar to those of volcanic eruptions. This experiment had a nozzle spraying a jet of steam at the spark discharge. By using high-performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, the group found more organic molecules than Miller had. Interestingly, they found that the volcano-like experiment had produced the most organic molecules, 22 amino acids, 5 amines and many hydroxylated molecules, which could have been formed by hydroxyl radicals produced by the electrified steam."

So, our more recent technology uncovered the fact that the Miller-Urey experiment had produced DOUBLE the amount of amino acids then they had initially realized.

What does all this mean?

We, the living creatures of Earth, are the children of water, volcanoes, and lightning.



Have a wonderful day!

Love to all,

Jackson

P.S. If you're into it, here's a pdf of the 1953 Miller-Urey write up.

Go, doctors Miller and Urey! You're Science-tastic!

Nat Geo Presents - Best Science Images '08!

Science! Oh yeah, sweety sweet science! So much funny fun fun! Science! Bum-ba-dummmm!

SCIENCE!

Nat Geo has released their picks for Best Science Photos '08, and they are stunnifying.

Einsteinic Fridge Revolution

It's a pretty well known fact that modern fridges and refrigerators are very harmful to the environment. They don't do harm as long as they're functioning. No, the harm begins when they're disposed of, this because the substances that are used to cool the fridge are released into the atmosphere. These substances, freon, or CFC's (short for chloro-fluor-carbon) are terrible greenhouse gasses. Way worse then carbon dioxide!
I hear you ask: "Why don't we just leave them out of our fridges?" Ok here's fridge 101.

In order to cool the air inside your fridge down, heat energy that is contained within it has to be carried away. You may have spotted some sort of a curvy tube on the back of your fridge, this part is crucial to the cooling process (in fact it contains the freon). On the inside of your fridge there's a tube which is almost the same.
Now, there is something which is called a "refrigerator valve". This is a part that makes sure the pressure gets really low in half of the tube system. This results into direct evaporation of all the freon. The temperature almost immediately drops, thus enabling to take up the excess of heat inside the fridge. Then the freon warms up again, passes through a compressor which turns it into a liquid substance again, and the freon releases it's heat. Then it goes through the valve again and like this it goes round and round.

Now, what is this all about you'll be wondering. Back in the olden days Albert Einstein designed his own fridge. An alternative which uses less-harmful substances (ammonia, water and butane). The whole system is under low-pressure which lowers boiling points.

This is just a global sketch. In short there is a container with liquid butane (the one in the middle with the sprinkler above). Then the sprinkler introduces a non-butane vapor causing the butane to evaporate (this becaue the boiling point is lowered by the introduction of the vapor). Since evaporation takes up energy it becomes cold. And thus it's cooled.

For more in-depth information you should definitely check out the feature The Guardian posted about the "Einstein Refrigerator". It's very possible that within a few years everyone owns a fridge based upon Einsteinic ideas.

-jdh

The Sombrero Galaxy

The Universe is such a big, wild, wonderful place.

From wikipedia:

"The famous Sombrero galaxy (M104) is a bright nearby spiral galaxy. The prominent dust lane and halo of stars and globular clusters give this galaxy its name. Something very energetic is going on in the Sombrero's center, as much X-ray light has been detected from it. This X-ray emission coupled with unusually high central stellar velocities cause many astronomers to speculate that a black hole lies at the Sombrero's center - a black hole a billion times the mass of our Sun."

If you'd like a nice, hi-res version of this image, click here.

Awesome Anatomy

A while ago Superforester Jackson posted something about Tom Geisler's art. An artist who made posters concerning human anatomy. In short Geisler delivered an excellent job at showing human anatomy in a fun way.

Now design company Kikkerland produced a line consisting out of models showing animal anatomy in a great, colorful, awesome way.

Wait, anatomy, that sounds silly. Well, according to Kikkerland it isn't. Take a look at their anatomically correct models.

 

  

The upper picture is the model of a snail and the lower is one of the human body. On the left side the muscle system and on the right the bone and artery systems.
The small statues are colorful, fun and decorative. And there's a whole lot of them.

via:lost at e minor

-jdh

Visions of the Future: Biotechnology

Just found this documentary on today's advancements in biotechnology. It covers topics like cloning, genetic engineering, custom-grown organs, life extension therapies. An amazing five part series.

All gathered in one helpful place, via the magic of youtube.

Enjoy.

CERN Turns on the LHC!

CERN = European Organization for Nuclear Research (or, Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire.)

LHC = Large Hadron Collider.

Well, the cats and kittens over at CERN flipped the "on" switch on the largest and most expensive experiment in particle physics ever. Today.

To dramatically over-simplify, the LHC makes tiny pieces of matter move really fast and then smash into each other. Then it records the results. Think crash test dummies but replace the dummies with protons.



Why?

Well, as crazy as it sounds, scientists have no idea why matter has mass. Truly. They just don't know. By running the LHC and analyzing the data it produces, they should be able to see for the very first time the elusive Higgs boson, which (if it exists) will help to explain why matter has mass, as well as a number of other unanswered questions.




A huge congratulations to CERN, to the operators and technicians and scientists at the LHC, and especially to all of humanity, whose understanding of the universe and its component parts is about to expand dramatically.

Yayyy! Science!



Here's a viddy to help explain who CERN is and what they do:




And, because it (and she) is so awesome, here is AlpineKat's LHC Rap:



Well done, humans.

(all of these luscious photos via Enrico Sacchetti)

The Amazing Science Videos of WBeaty!

Hello All,

We're unsure how exactly we found wbeaty's youtube page, but are we ever glad we did!

This cat has some amazing science videos up.

Like this: Drawing Holograms By Hand


Incredible, no? We didn't know you could do that.

Here he shows how to make a working generator out of cardboard, magnets, and wire.



And best yet, he's got a personal playlist of his favorite science videos from across the youtube universe:



Enjoy! We certainly did.

Love to All,

Team SuperForest

String Theory in Two Minutes or Less!

Ooooooo!
If you're like me, then you like sciencey stuff. But who can make heads or tails of complex theories or explanations?
The clever chappies at Discover Magazine held a contest! Who can accurately (and succinctly) describe String Theory in two minutes or less?
Many brave science folks have answered the call!
The mini-movies are so simple a soybean could get it, and guaranteed not to take more than 120 seconds of your precious life!

Here's my favorite: String Ducky

Peep it here!
discovermagazine.com


Science! Wheeeeeeeeeee!